Electronic Medical Record

The department of Veteran Affairs and The Defense Department are simultaneously trying to implement Electronic Health Records. The military health system is using a customized version of the same Cerner Millennium software VA has been struggling to implement, but the DoD version is much further along.

The IG reports found new EHR sometimes failed to indicate to providers that patients were flagged as being at high risk of suicide and gave VA providers an incomplete picture of patients’ health care data. Auditors also found health care providers’ requests for patients to receive lab work through the new EHR platform didn’t always reach the facility’s laboratory.

Several federal agencies are involved in developing MaternalHealthLink, a data-sharing tool focused on maternal health.

HHS' latest brief emphasized the severity of EMR and EHR security risks and urged organizations to implement technical safeguards.