Veterans Affairs and DoD have been working since 1998 to establish the capability to exchange service-member and veteran health data between them and have recently decided on a new approach but the long-term outlook remains unclear, the Congressional Research Service has said.
The departments agreed in 2011 to work cooperatively on the development of a common electronic health record and to transition to it by 2017, but in February decided to cease work on that and focus instead on interoperability and using existing technological solutions.
Moderate progress has been made to design and plan around a need to insure compatibility with each other’s systems, CRS said, but at this point – after changing approaches several times – it appears the latest phase of the long-standing effort is open-ended and will continue to evolve.
