VA Secretary Cites Backlog of Claims
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Outgoing Secretary Jim Nicholson acknowledged yesterday that the Department of Veterans Affairs is struggling to reduce backlogs in disability claims from Iraq war veterans.
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The U.S. Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs still aren&#39;t able to share complete electronic health records of military members and veterans despite working on a project for nine years, employees of the two agencies told a congressional committee Wednesday.While the two agencies have begun to share some text records, including discharge summaries and emergency-room reports, it won&#39;t be until 2008 before they can share vital signs of patients, laboratory data, and family histories, said Dr. Gerald Cross, principal deputy undersecretary of health in the VA&#39;s Veterans Health Administration.Officials from both agencies told the U.S. House of Representatives Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations they&#39;re making good progress, but issues remain. &quot;The work to make data computable between two different health-care systems is very complex and requires complete standardization of data,&quot; Cross said.And the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has yet to see a comprehensive plan from the two agencies to share e-health records, added Valerie Melvin, director of human capital and management information systems issues for the GAO. The GAO has issued multiple reports since 2001 calling for VA and DOD to improve their health records sharing, she noted.The agencies have made progress on short-term projects to share data between some health-care centers, she said.&quot;These exchanges are limited, as significant work still remains to achieve the long-term goal of a comprehensive electronic medical record,&quot; Melvin said. It&#39;s unclear how a number of ad hoc projects will fit into an e-health record program, she said.Lawmakers stressed the importance of getting a record-sharing program in place as wounded military members come back from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and will get medical service from both agencies. &quot;This is a critically important issue,&quot; said Rep. Harry Mitchell, an Arizona Democrat and subcommittee chairman. &quot;Thousands of our servicemen and women require and will continue to require significant medical care.&quot;While lawmakers called for the agencies to move faster, the GAO noted some progress. The agencies have developed repositories for health data and are starting to populate them with data, a GAO report said. Seven DOD and VA sites are using an interface to the data repositories, the report said.&quot;Much work&quot; remains before the e-health records sharing system is fully operational, the report said.The DOD and VA effort has been plagued by several setbacks in the past nine years. An interface for a data repository was delayed for more than a year at one point, and in July 2002, the agencies split the project into two initiatives after multiple delays.In July, after nine years of work, the two agencies awarded a contract for a consultant to conduct a feasibility study for a common inpatient health record system.Together, the two agencies have spent more than $1.8 billion on health records initiatives since 1998, according to the GAO.But officials from both agencies expressed optimism. Asked if they could share all data within a year, three officials from the DOD and one from the VA said they expect that to happen.&quot;We are all working toward the same end -- to provide the highest-quality care to our nation&#39;s heroes, past and present,&quot; said Dr. Stephen Jones, the DOD&#39;s principal deputy assistant secretary for health affairs.
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Top officials at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, including the Army's surgeon general, have heard complaints about outpatient neglect from family members, veterans groups and members of Congress for more than three years.
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The ministerâs comments suggested a longer U.S. commitment in Iraq than had previously been indicated.
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The Department of Veterans Affairs this week doubled the disability benefits of a West Virginia soldier who has been fighting for more compensation since he returned from Iraq, and assured him that he will receive immediate access to more mental health services to treat his post-traumatic stress...
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President Bush on Friday named seven more members to the commission investigating the treatment of wounded veterans. Bush has ordered a comprehensive review of conditions at military and veterans hospitals, which have been overwhelmed by injured troops from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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Defence secretary calls for 'period of consolidation and evaluation' before any cut in numbers
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The Veterans Affairs worker faulted for losing veterans&#039; personal information had permission to access millions of Social Security numbers on a laptop from home, agency documents obtained by The Associated Press show.
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Here we go again. The Department of Veterans Affairs has disclosed that information on more than half a million individuals and about 1.3 million non-VA physicians -- both living and deceased -- is missing and may have been stolen. The information had been stored on a portable hard drive that was...
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Citing newly disclosed State Department documents, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) called yesterday for further congressional hearings on Halliburton Co.
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The Department of Veterans Affairs is once again chasing a missing hard drive, this one containing the records of 48,000 military veterans. Approxiately 20,000 of those records were not encrypted according to agency spokespersons.
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A veteran who disputed Democratic  presidential candidate John Kerry's Vietnam war record  acknowledged on Sunday he had no proof to back his charge that  Kerry fabricated the reports of enemy fire that won him two  medals.
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fter weeks of taking fire over veterans&#39; accusations that he had lied about his Vietnam service record to win medals and build a political career, Senator John Kerry shot back yesterday, calling those statements ...
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The many medical claims by veterans of U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan has completely overwhelmed the American government, leading to "shameful failures" in treatment, a class-action lawsuit filed on Monday alleged.
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(InfoWorld) - A government audit of four U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) centers found $6.4 million worth of missing or misplaced IT equipment, according to a report released Tuesday. Inventories in fiscal years 2005 and 2006 found about 2,400 missing IT devices at the four VA locations, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report said. Among the missing items were dozens of computers that could have stored personal information. The GAO also found computer hard drives being disposed containing the names, Social Security numbers, or medical histories of hundreds of U.S. military veterans. About 28 percent of the IT equipment at the VA medical center in Washington, D.C., was missing or misplaced, the GAO said. The missing equipment in the new GAO report is in addition to an earlier audit showing more than 8,600 missing IT items, with a combined original cost of $13.2 million, from five other VA centers, the GAO said. There is an "overall lack of accountability" for IT equipment at the VA locations, said McCoy Williams, director of financial management and assurance at GAO. The GAO found a "pervasive" lack of personal accountability at all four locations, he told the U.S. House of Representatives Veterans Affairs Committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. "Missing IT items were not reported for several months and, in some cases, for several years," Williams told the subcommittee. In some cases, hard drives scheduled to be disposed of sat around for several years without being wiped clean, "creating an unnecessary risk that sensitive personal and medical information could be compromised," Williams added. The VA's IT practices have been the target of frequent criticism by U.S. lawmakers in recent years. The agency, in May 2006, reported that a laptop and hard drive containing the personal records of 26.5 million military veterans and family members was stolen from an employee's home. Police later recovered the equipment, and the VA said the records did not appear to be compromised. Subcommittee members called on the VA to improve its inventory management. "We know that VA has serious problems keeping track of its IT inventory," said Rep. Harry Mitchell, subcommittee chairman and Arizona Democrat. "This is not just a dollar issue. It is also a security and privacy issue." The VA is implementing new IT equipment management procedures and, after a three-month process, has found about 90 percent of the missing equipment, said Robert Howard, the VA's assistant secretary for information and technology. "The lack of accountability was clearly evident," said Howard, who became the agency's CIO in September 2006. "You shouldn't have to go through that to find your equipment." The VA has issued a new equipment handbook, and employees now have to sign for equipment in their control, Howard said. The VA has concurred on all 12 GAO recommendations for inventory management, VA officials said. The VA is also deploying network monitoring software that can scan for devices, Howard said. "This is a critically important issue," Howard said. "This is a situation of utmost importance. It is a situation we are working hard to remedy."
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The Veterans Administration and its benefits programs need to be streamlined, a Congressional panel was told.
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RICHMOND, Va. -- The Virginia Department of Health is seeking nearly 100,000 additional doses of flu vaccine for statewide distribution.