A joint DD-VA program office is not yet effectively positioned to function as a single point of accountability for the implementation of fully interoperable electronic health record systems or capabilities between the two departments, GAO has said after analyzing agency documentation on project status and conducting interviews with agency officials.
According to GAO-09-775, in order to improve management of DoD’s and VA’s efforts the program office needs to establish a project plan and a complete and detailed integrated master schedule.
The fiscal 2008 National Defense Authorization Act gave the departments until September 30 to achieve the ability to exchange health records electronically among their various systems but the deadline is fast approaching and additional work beyond it will likely be required.
DoD and VA have achieved planned capabilities for three of the objectives – refine social history data, share physical exam data, and demonstrate initial network gateway operation and for the remaining three they have partially achieved planned capabilities, with additional work needed to fully meet the objectives, according to GAO.
Further, it said that while the departments have made progress in setting up the program office by hiring additional staff, they continue to fill key leadership positions on an interim basis and that the office is not yet fulfilling key IT management responsibilities in the areas of performance measurement, project planning, and scheduling.
