Department of Defense (DoD)
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Innovation At VA: Collaboration, Data Aid Veteran Benefits Project
A collaborative effort to combine data previously scattered across multiple federal agencies has led to a single portal where veterans can access key benefits. Read More »
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Inside Obama's Stealth Startup
The new hub of Washington’s tech insurgency is something known as the U.S. Digital Service, which is headquartered in a stately brick townhouse half a block from the White House. USDS -employees tend to congregate with their laptops at a long table at the back half of the parlor floor. If there’s no room, they retreat downstairs to a low-ceilinged basement, sprawling on cushioned chairs. Apart from an air-hockey table, there aren’t many physical reminders of West Coast startup culture—a lot of the new techies are issued BlackBerrys, which seems to cause them near-physical pain...
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Integrated Health Record Effort Adds To VA's Troubles
The Integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR) program is not the Department of Veterans Affairs' only lightning rod, but it is a major one. Officially in the works since 2011, the records-sharing program took root after 15 years of discussion and cooperation between the two agencies to share military members' health data. Read More »
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Integrated Health Record Tests DoD's Agile Acquisition Aspirations
A year later, Dr. Barclay Butler was appointed to direct the Interagency Program Office (IPO) that will coordinate DoD and VA's activities. And he's come to the conclusion that development of the Integrated Electronic Health Record (iEHR) just isn't compatible with the traditional DoD acquisition system.
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Internal watchdog blasts DoD's health IT efforts
The Defense Department's current approach to achieving health record interoperability with the Veterans Affairs Department is "manifestly inconsistent" with White House directives to adopt and use open data standards, according to a memo from the Pentagon's top systems evaluator. Read More »
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IOM: No More DoD-VA Integrated Medical Centers Until iEHR
Additional integrated health centers along the lines of the James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, Ill., shouldn't be undertaken by the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs until they stand up an interoperable electronic health records system, says the Institute of Medicine. Read More »
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iPhones And iPads Poised To Win Key Pentagon Security Nod Next Week
Apple, within days, is set to finish clearing two safety hurdles that had kept the iPhone and iPad out of fingers’ way in the Defense Department and some civilian agencies. Read More »
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IPO Awards $11M iEHR Contract, DoD Demos EHRs
The Veterans Affairs and Defense Departments' interagency program office awarded a 12-month, $11 million contract Oct. 9 to Systems Made Simple--the same company that originally won the iEHR contract in 2012. Read More »
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Is DoD's EHR modernization bound to fail?
...some are saying the system, the most expensive EHR investment of its kind, is bound for failure, while others suggest the contract itself should be delayed pending further review. Thomas J. Verbeck, a CIO and a retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general, recently wrote that sharing data is essential for the DoD because it will speed healthcare delivery and save lives, as well as reduce healthcare costs, prevent medical errors and avoid unnecessary testing. "But the DoD's plan will fail," Verbeck wrote in The Fayetteville Observer. "That's because most of today's EHR systems, including the bidder finalists, are designed only to work within their own system.
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Is iEHR Really Dead?
Is the highly-anticipated joint iEHR that the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs have been working on ready for a burial? Or not? Read More »
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IT Projects May Not Be Getting Enough Oversight
The White House should do a better job of tracking whether agencies’ major technology projects are at risk of going off the rails and agencies should perform more oversight on their operations and maintenance spending, according to two recent watchdog reports. Read More »
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Joining Forces to Heal Invisible Wounds
...I was privileged to be invited to a meeting on January 10 at the White House concerning a remarkable initiative launched by First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, called “Joining Forces.” Dedicated to improving public education about “the invisible wounds of war,” this effort is particularly focused on families of returning soldiers suffering from PTSD, TBI, and combat-related depression.
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Joint EHR Costs Skyrocketed To $28 Billion, DoD Says
Physicians spending a paltry twenty or thirty thousand dollars on their EHR implementations can take comfort in the fact that they don’t have to foot the bill for the recently abandoned joint VA-DoD EHR system, which would have cost the taxpayers $28 billion, according to Frank Kendall, undersecretary of Defense for acquisitions. Read More »
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Joint iEHR Spending Was Focused On Service Contracts
The bulk of spending on the joint EHR proposed by the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs went to support service contracts in 2012, according to a new report from the Interagency Program Office (IPO), the agency in charge of modernizing the Military Health System's EHR software. Read More »
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Jon Stewart Weighs in on Defense-VA E-Health Record Standoff
Stewart hammered home the lack of compatibility between AHLTA and VistA -- well known inside the Beltway -- to his national audience. “These two programs are unable to communicate with each other,” Stewart said, paused, and added, “I swear to you this is true -- how insane is this complication?” Read More »
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