June 05, 2017

Ranking Members Walz and Brownley Statement On Announcement Of Next-Generation Electronic Health Record

WASHINGTON, D.C. --- Today, House Committee on Veterans Affairs Ranking Member Tim Walz (D-MN) and Subcommittee on Health Ranking Member Julia Brownley (D-CA) released the following statement after Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Dr. David Shulkin announced that the VA will soon take steps to adopt the same electronic health record (EHR) system as the Department of Defense.

“The decision to fully modernize the VA’s electronic health record is the right one and one I have been championing since my first days in Congress,” Rep. Walz said. “Bringing the VA’s EHR system into the 21st Century has been one of my highest priorities and I am proud of the work I have done to lay the groundwork making today’s accomplishment possible. The VA’s current EHR system is notoriously out-of-date and incompatible with the system used by Department of Defense to track the health of our active-duty and reserve forces. By adopting the same EHR system as DoD, interoperability between the Departments will be seamless and will help protect the health and wellbeing of millions of veterans across the country as a result. However, our work here is far from complete as it is expected to take years to fully modernize the VA’s EHR system through this plan. I look forward to working closely with Secretary Shulkin and my colleagues in Congress as we seek to fully modernize all information technology systems at the VA.”

"I have said frequently that we cannot provide world class healthcare to our veterans without world class technology at the VA to serve them," Rep Brownley said. "Integrating the VA's health records system with the Department of Defense system is an important step in the right direction towards simplifying and improving our ability to deliver timely, quality healthcare to our nation's veterans."

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