VA Teams With Walgreens On Vaccinations, Electronic Data Sharing

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced Thursday it has entered into an agreement with Walgreens — the nation’s largest retail drugstore chain — to provide vaccinations to veterans nationwide and said it will leverage the company’s cloud-based health record system to integrate vaccination records in real-time with VA.  At more than 8,200 U.S. locations, Walgreens will offer flu and other recommended vaccinations to veterans. Pharmacists can administer vaccines to veterans, and through Walgreens’ Cloud Electronic Health Records platform, they will be able to securely share immunization records with VA through eHealth Exchange, a group of federal and private sector health care organizations focused on interoperable and security data exchange.

“The VA-Walgreens partnership gives veterans greater choice in time and location for getting their flu shots without having to complete any other VA forms,” said Interim Undersecretary for Health Dr. Carolyn Clancy in a release. “With this program, the Veteran patient’s record is integrated, and VA maintains a complete immunization record that allows us to more effectively provide patient-centered care.”

Walgreens completed the roll out of its cloud-based EHR system in August and has described it as one of the largest such systems ever developed. It provides a single, integrated view of patient immunizations, prescriptions and tests to pharmacy staff across all of Walgreens’ 8,200 locations in all 50 states. The system is capable of supporting the company’s more than 27,000 pharmacists and processing 20,000 patient encounters every hour...