VA Demos Prototype for New Patient Record System

The Department of Veterans Affairs is designing a new platform that can pull patient records from disparate hospital systems into one virtual place, potentially giving physicians a more complete look at a patient's history. The Enterprise Health Management Platform, or eHMP, is still in its early stages. Pilots in a few cities including Portland (OR) and San Antonio (TX) are scheduled to begin in July. But during a briefing with reporters, VA officials were eager to demonstrate progress on the prototype, though it's still buggy -- a pop-up information box lingers after the user moves the cursor away, for instance. The current version of eHMP is read-only, meaning clinicians can use it to view patient records from VA, the Defense Department and community health partners through an electronic health information exchange.

But it's an improvement on VA's current platform -- the Computerized Patient Record System -- because it lets clinicians search beyond files stored at their location, Neil Evans, ‎co-director of connected health at the Veterans Health Administration, said during the demonstration. Currently, a care provider must use a remote-viewing application to access records from other facilities. A more integrated system could help care providers see which drugs a patient has been prescribed and filled and in which location. This approach shows physicians a broader look at possible drug interactions among other risks, said David Waltman, VA's senior adviser to the undersecretary for health.