“Investment in federal electronic health records and data consolidation has already paid dividends in improving both continuity of care as well as overall digital modernization across partner agencies.”
“Speaking at the 2021 GovernmentCIO Media & Research Health IT: New Horizons in Medicine summit, representatives from the U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Electronic Health Records Modernization (FEHRM) Program Office and DocuSign discussed how progress in formalizing electronic health record modernization across government is leading to improved patient outcomes and smoother data management.”
“This has been an especially fruitful development in smoothing coordination between health-focused agencies and community care providers, with Director of the FEHRM Program Office Bill Tinston noting a multiplicative improvement in data coverage.”
“The departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense created the FEHRM office in 2019 to implement a single, common EHR and oversee the delivery of the common record that is shared between departments and interoperable with community care providers.”
“’I think the coverage of the community health care providers on the DOD side with the Health Information Exchange was about 14% … and I think it was about 30% on the VA side,’ Tinston said. ‘The really exciting thing is on the DOD side they’ve gone from 13% coverage to 65% of the community care providers, and then from 30% to 65% on the VA side, which is a huge improvement.'”
“Tinston detailed that this has been crucial for improving continuity of care and providing caregivers with the patient information and medical history necessary to provide effective treatment, while allowing them to more easily sort relevant data…” Read the full article here.
Source: Health Records Modernization Improving Care, Data Sharing Across Government – By Adam Patterson, February 1, 2021. GovernmentCIO.
