House Veterans Affairs Committee
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Committee Skeptical Of Extra VA Funding, Citing Ballooning Staff Size
Members of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee expressed reluctance today to approve a $17.6 billion Veterans Affairs supplemental funding request for additional clinical staff and expanded facilities, in part, because the size of the Veterans Health Administration’s central office staff jumped more than tenfold from the mid-1990s to 2012...
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In Capitol Hill testimony, Baker touts open-source advantage
VA technology chief Roger Baker made a spirited defense of the VA's plan to save money and improve its own EHR system through an open-source EHR improvement effort. Read More »
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Lawmakers Seek Lower Price On Bill For Vets’ Health Care
Stung by sticker shock, members of Congress are scrambling to lower the cost of a bill to fix veterans’ health care amid a growing uproar over long waits for appointments and falsification of records to cover up the delays at Veterans Affairs hospitals...
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No New VA Patient Scheduling System Until 2020 (Updated)
...The Department of Veterans Affairs will not install a new patient scheduling system to all of its 153 hospitals and 50,000 users until 2020, according to contract documents released last week...
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Panetta, Shinseki Acknowledge Frustration in Streamling Military Health Care
Secretary of Defense Leon E. Panetta and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki acknowledged Wednesday that they have been frustrated by departmental bureaucracy in their attempts to streamline military health care for severely wounded service members. Read More »
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Secretary McDonald Op-Ed in the Baltimore Sun: VA is critical to medicine and vets
During preparation for my confirmation as secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA), I was repeatedly asked, "Why doesn't VA just hand out vouchers allowing veterans to get care wherever they want?" For a department recovering from serious issues involving health care access and scheduling of appointments, that was a legitimate question. After nine weeks at VA, travel to 31 VA facilities in 15 cities, discussions with hundreds of veterans and VA clinicians, meetings with 75 Members of Congress, two hearings before the Senate and House Veterans' Affairs committees and dozens of meetings with Veterans Service Organizations and other stakeholders, I can answer that question. Veterans need VA, and many more Americans benefit from VA. Read More »
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Tech Glitches at One VA Site Raise Concerns About a Nationwide Rollout
Spokane, Washington, was supposed to be the center of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ tech reinvention, the first site in the agency’s decade-long project to change its medical records software. But one morning in early March, the latest system malfunction made some clinicians snap. At Spokane’s Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center, the records system — developed by Cerner Corp., based in North Kansas City, Missouri — went down. Staffers, inside the hospital and its outpatient facilities, were back to relying on pen and paper. Computerized schedules were inaccessible. Physicians couldn’t enter new orders or change patients’ medications.
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United Kingdom Eyes VA’s Electronic Health Record
The Veterans Affairs Department and the United Kingdom’s National Health Service have teamed up to share ideas, strategies and leadership for development of health information technology, opening the possibility that the NHS could use VA’s electronic health record system. Peter Levin, the former VA Chief Technology Officer who retired this month, told Nextgov the Pentagon also should adopt VA electronic health record. Read More »
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VA Begins Process To Remove Official At Center Of FedBid Scandal
Less than a week after the Energy Department withdrew an offer of employment to Susan Taylor, the Veterans Health Administration’s deputy chief procurement officer at the center of a procurement scandal involving FedBid, the VA announced Monday it has started the formal process of removing Taylor from her position at the agency...
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VA Is Competing for the Pentagon’s Electronic Health Record Contract
The Veterans Affairs Department plans to enter its next generation electronic health record into the competition for the Defense Department’s EHR job, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki told a hearing of the House Veterans Affairs Committee Thursday. Read More »
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Why Obama's Mental-Health Initiatives Will Leave Many Troubled Vets Without Help
President Obama last week unveiled a series of measures to improve mental-health care for veterans, ranging from awareness campaigns to increased funding for brain chips to treat post-traumatic stress disorder. Some advocates, however, do not believe Obama's efforts go far enough...
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