When will VA records all be electronic? I’ll give you a hint. See that pig over there? How are its flying lessons coming?
The developments aren’t highly publicized, but the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense(DOD) have spent the last half a decade trying to convert their paper files to electronic files. Combined, the departments spent at least $1.3 billion during the last four years trying unsuccessfully to develop a single electronic health records system between the two departments. The result? Veterans’ disability claims are piling up in paper files.
For a veteran in the disability claims process, these records are critical. They include DOD service and health records needed by the VA to decide veterans’ disability ratings and the compensation they will receive for their injuries.
The National Defense Authorization Act for 2008 mandated that the DOD and VA secretaries “develop and implement electronic health-record systems or capabilities that allow for full interoperability of personal health information between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.” However, after several years and several failed plans, neither the DOD nor the VA is able to completely access the other’s electronic records. Meanwhile, each has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrades to its information technology and on attempts to improve interoperability between their systems.
In 2011, the agencies decided the solution would be to create a single electronic healthcare record together. But after two years, the departments’ secretaries in February of this year canceled the plan with little public explanation. They then announced they would upgrade their own electronic healthcare records systems and build software that would allow the two systems to exchange files.
The VA has also invested $12 billion over five years in a project called Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology, or T4, to upgrade its own technologies. One of the major goals of this initiative is for the upgrade to include interoperable software that can be used between the VA and the DOD.
Interestingly, the VA seemed to be investing in this plan well before the joint deal with the DOD fell through. The VA signed a $80.3 multi-year contract with a company called Harris Corp almost a year before it gave up on devising a single electronic health record system with the DOD.
Converting all of these paper files to electronic files is no easy task. No one disputes that. But at the same time, surely there is a more efficient and cost-effective way. The VA’s current scanning system – the Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS) – cost $480 million between 2009 and 2012, yet the VA never set deadlines for the records to be scanned. The result is that as of mid-summer of this year, only thirty percent of paper claims had been scanned.
And it’s important these documents are scanned in, and properly. It is much, much easier to lose a paper file than an electronic one. And remember the great fire of 1973? This was when a fire at the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis (fun trivia fact – my dad works there) destroyed 16 to 18 million military personnel fires. Also, electronic files can be more easily accessed and transmitted.
The VA has announced the goal of all VA files to be processed within 125 days. But in order to meet this goal, these paper files must be scanned into the system. Some Regional Offices such as Roanoke are ahead of the curve, but for the most part, Regional Offices lag far behind. And as a consequence, the veterans suffer.
This is an electronic age. The VA needs to get up to speed, or our nation’s veterans will pay the price.
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