EHR

Healthcare is moving to a patient-centered approached and health information technology must follow suit, said Roger Baker, Veterans Affairs Department chief information officer. The VA has focused for years on creating electronic health records that deliver great information to clinicians, said Baker. "But what we haven't done to this point is turn that into a patient-centered electronic health record," he added.

In its ongoing efforts to promote the use of electronic health records nationwide, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services last week announced the final rule to govern Stage 2 of the Medicare and Medicaid Electronic Health Record Incentive Programs. The changes "will lead to more coordination of patient care, reduced medical errors, elimination of duplicate screenings and tests and greater patient engagement in their own care," said HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in an Aug. 23 press release .

Eleven of the 12 areas of VA-DoD integration at FHCC are "implemented" or "in progress," while IT remains the only integration area "delayed," says GAO. These delays remain despite the more than $122 million VA and DoD have spent thus far on IT capabilities, says the report.

Some of the productivity benefits from health IT may be hard to detect because data and analytic evaluation methods are inadequate, says analysis published June 14 in the New England Journal of Medicine from the research non-profit RAND Corporation.