Since the founding of our nation, men and women have served in the military to protect our nation from harm both foreign and domestic. And since 1947, a day has been set aside to honor their service.
But honoring those who served our country should not be limited to Nov. 11. It should be a daily exercise for everyone who does not take for granted the freedom and liberty our veterans’ service and sacrifice have provided.
WHAT THE GOP CAN LEARN FROM 2023
Caring for the nation’s veterans should include thanking them, to be sure, but also providing them with the best possible benefits, especially medical care and treatment, during and after their service to the country. The Department of Veterans Affairs is supposed to provide such care after they leave active duty. But the VA continues to fall short, and unnecessary interference from members of Congress has added to the problems besetting the VA healthcare system.
Providing the best medical care requires transferring patient information from the Department of Defense to the VA as effectively and efficiently as possible. In 2008, Congress passed legislation directing the development of a joint interoperable electronic health record system by Sept. 30, 2009. By March 2009, DOD and VA managed to share and use certain health information for some service members, including pharmacy and drug allergy data. The agencies increased the exchange of such data to more than 27,000 patients, an increase of approximately 9,000 patients, between June 2008 and January 2009. But full interoperability was not achieved.
After several starts and stops, DOD and VA agreed in March 2011 to create a new joint iEHR to be fully implemented by 2017. After spending more than $1 billion on the new system, the two departments announced on Feb. 5, 2013, that they were terminating the program due to its excessive costs.
By June 2017, the VA decided to phase out the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture EHR, which was first deployed in 1994, and adopt DOD’s new system, known as Military Health System GENESIS. DOD expected the MHS GENESIS system to be operational at four DOD sites by the end of 2017, and the announcement was a promising step in providing a fully interoperable solution to veterans’ EHR modernization. But that initiative remains in flux, as flaws within the VistA architecture, stemming from decades of underinvestment and individual facility software tweaking at many of the 1,321 healthcare facilities, have made interoperability even more difficult to achieve. VistA is also vulnerable to security issues that could affect patient care.
Despite clear evidence of these serious problems, some members of Congress continue to support the VistA system and oppose moving patient information to a cloud platform that would be compatible with the DOD.
On Jan. 27, 2023, House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization Chairman Matt Rosendale (R-MT) introduced legislation to halt the modernization of the VA’s EHR program and retain the VistA IT system, despite its incompatibility, limitations, and cybersecurity flaws. This effort is opposed by Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester (D-MT), who insists that the VistA EHR needs to be modernized.
There is no solution to the interoperability problem that should include maintaining or modernizing VistA. The DOD has adopted its MHS GENESIS system across nearly all health facilities in the U.S. The new system being developed by the VA will be interoperable with MHS GENESIS.
It was always clear that moving 1,321 separate systems that were not operating in the cloud to a single cloud-based system would be difficult and take time. Members of Congress should not be throwing away the progress that has been made by indefinitely keeping VistA in place.
The VA should move forward and complete the deployment of the new EHR system to fulfill its mission statement: “To fulfill President Lincoln’s promise to care for those who have served in our nation’s military and for their families, caregivers, and survivors.” This would enable the VA to better meet the needs of the nation’s veterans and ensure they receive quality, consistent care as they transition out of military service.
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Deborah Collier is the vice president for policy and government affairs at Citizens Against Government Waste.
Veterans deserve a more efficient, modern healthcare system
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10.11.2023
Since the founding of our nation, men and women have served in the military to protect our nation from harm both foreign and domestic. And since 1947, a day has been set aside to honor their service.
But honoring those who served our country should not be limited to Nov. 11. It should be a daily exercise for everyone who does not take for granted the freedom and liberty our veterans’ service and sacrifice have provided.
WHAT THE GOP CAN LEARN FROM 2023
Caring for the nation’s veterans should include thanking them, to be sure, but also providing them with the best possible benefits, especially medical care and treatment, during and after their service to the country. The Department of Veterans Affairs is supposed to provide such care after they leave active duty. But the VA continues to fall short, and unnecessary interference from members of Congress has added to the problems besetting the VA healthcare system.
Providing the best medical care requires transferring patient information from the Department of Defense to the VA as effectively and efficiently as possible. In 2008, Congress passed........
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