VA, DoD expand sharing of health records

The Defense Department and the Veterans Affairs Department are expanding the sharing of electronic health records through the Nationwide Health Information Network.

DoD and VA chose the Tidewater area of Southeastern Virginia as the next area to pilot the concept of sharing electronic health records with private sector providers. DoD and VA say they chose this area because it has a high concentration of veterans, military retirees, members of the guard and reserve, and active duty service members and their dependents.

The decision to expand the pilot comes about two months after VA announced the results of its initial test program to share records across the NHIN with Kaiser Permanente in San Diego.

VA and Kaiser's use of the NHIN was the first large-scale attempt to use the network to share data between the federal government and the private sector. The NHIN is a set of open standards and protocols that health care providers can communicate through to share data. To use the NHIN, hospitals and doctors do not have to rely on any one type of software or hardware, which helps solve the interoperability challenges of the past.

For this second pilot, which is scheduled to begin later this year, VA and DoD will invite service members and veterans to participate by authorizing their public and private sector health care providers and doctors to share specific their electronic health records.

"No exchange of information will occur without the appropriate permissions of the individual patients," DoD says in a release. "Access to care will not be affected by a decision not to participate."

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