VA, DOD, and FEHRM roll out Federal Electronic Health Record in North Chicago

WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense, and Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization office launched the Federal Electronic Health Record (EHR) at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center (Lovell FHCC) in North Chicago, Illinois. This is the first joint deployment of the federal EHR, which DOD calls MHS GENESIS, at a joint VA and Department of Defense (DOD) facility.

As the only fully integrated, jointly run VA and DOD health care system in the country, Lovell FHCC provides health care to approximately 75,000 patients each year, including Veterans, service members and their families, and Navy recruits. The joint deployment ensures that all patients who visit the facility will receive care that is coordinated through a single fully integrated EHR system. The Federal EHR also improves the ability for VA and DOD to coordinate care and share data with each other and the rest of the U.S. health care system.

“The Federal EHR will enhance care for all beneficiaries who walk through our doors, whether they are Veterans, Navy recruits, students, active-duty service members, their dependents, or retirees,” said Dr. Robert Buckley, Lovell FHCC Director. “It enables a continuum of care that will enhance our operations as we work to optimize health outcomes for those we serve.”

“This joint deployment of the Federal EHR at Lovell FHCC will provide a more coordinated experience for patients and the clinicians who care for them,” said acting program executive director of the Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office, Dr. Neil Evans. Additionally, while VA continues with the broader reset of our electronic health record modernization program, we are learning lessons from this deployment to inform our future decisions.”

“The launch of the Federal EHR at Lovell FHCC will help DOD and VA deliver on the promise made to those who serve our country to provide seamless care from their first day of active service to the transition to veteran status,” said HON Lester Martinez-Lopez, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. “A joint electronic health record system demonstrates the power of technology to improve health care delivery, and we look forward to continued collaboration with our VA partners.”

“Our deployment of the Federal EHR at Lovell FHCC will significantly advance interoperability,” said Mr. Bill Tinston, FEHRM Director. “This will not only benefit the patients and staff in North Chicago, but all joint sites that need joint solutions to effectively deliver care.”

The new, modernized federal EHR will meaningfully improve patient health outcomes and benefits decisions. It is particularly critical at Lovell FHCC, so all patients – and clinicians – at the facility can utilize one EHR system. The DOD has now completed installation of the federal EHR to all its garrison hospitals and clinics throughout the world.

VA is moving forward with deployment at Lovell FHCC despite pausing all other deployments under a reset of its Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program. VA continues to closely examine the issues that clinicians and other end users are experiencing at its sites using the Federal EHR and is developing the success criteria to determine when to exit the program reset and restart deployments at other facilities. As the first deployment at a larger, more complex VA health care facility, the experience at Lovell FHCC will help inform these decisions. Additional deployments will not be scheduled until VA is confident that the new EHR is highly functioning at all current sites and ready to deliver for Veterans and VA clinicians at future sites.

For more information about VA’s overall EHR modernization effort, visit https://www.ehrm.va.gov/. For more information about DOD’s effort, visit https://www.health.mil/MHSGENESIS. For more information about the Federal EHR, visit https://www.FEHRM.gov.

Originally published by Office of Public and Intergovernmental Affairs