The Veterans Affairs Department hospital in Indianapolis will participate in a pilot project to exchange veterans' health information with private-sector healthcare organizations via the Indiana Health Information Exchange, the VA announced.
Joining the exchange is part of a broader government effort—also encompassing the Defense Department—that President Barack Obama announced last year to create a virtual lifetime electronic record for active-duty and retired armed-services members.
"This new technology allows safer, more secure and private access to electronic health information, which, in turn, enhances our ability to continue providing veterans with the quality care that they have earned," Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said in a news release.
Because more than half of veterans and active-duty service personnel receive some portion of their healthcare from providers outside the VA or the Defense Department healthcare systems, achieving interoperability of patient information between the government and those private-sector providers is essential to providing them with the best care, according to the VA statement.
Veterans will not be enrolled automatically in the exchange; instead, they will have the opportunity to opt in, "with the understanding that their information will not be shared without their authorization," according to the VA. Participants in the exchange will let their data be shared between private sector participants in the Indianapolis-based regional health information exchange, or RHIO, and the 159-bed Richard Roudebush VA Medical Center there.
The Indiana program doesn't mark the first time VA will exchange patient information with a RHIO, VA spokeswoman Josephine Schuda said. A VA pilot program in the Hampton/Tidewater area of Virginia involves a partnership with the MedVirginia health information exchange organization, she said.
As another element of the virtual lifetime electronic-record program, the VA also has been engaged for about a year in a pilot in San Diego with the Defense Department and Kaiser Permanente to implement new, advanced privacy-protection technology.
WorldVistA is a not-for-profit organization founded in 2002 whose mission is "to improve healthcare worldwide by making medical information technology better and universally affordable." It oversees the development of WorldVistA EHR, an open-source version of the VA's VistA system, and hosts semi-annual conferences for commercial and not-for-profit organizations that sell, service or use versions of VistA.
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