Improving access to health information between VA and community care

When a Veteran receives care from both VA and a non-VA provider, both healthcare teams need access to the same information to make informed decisions. VA is continuing to improve how health information is shared across healthcare systems, giving community providers access to a complete picture of a Veteran’s health history to deliver safer, more coordinated care.

Health Information exchange (HIE) continues to make care coordination easier. VA provides training on electronic information-sharing tools and strengthens connections with non-VA providers to support expanding coordination efforts.

Making outside clinical records easier to use

For providers, a missing allergy or incomplete visit history can complicate clinical decisions. That’s why it was critical for VA to correct display issues that prevented some allergy and encounter information from appearing correctly in VA records.

The fix ensures records coming in from community providers appear the way they should, giving VA providers a more complete view of a Veteran’s health before making care decisions.

Expanding interoperability

More than14,000 VA staff members have been trained on electronic health information exchange tools this fiscal year, allowing providers to quickly send and receive health information from non-VA providers directly within VA health systems. VA has also updated and consolidated enterprise guidance materials to support more consistent use of these tools VA-wide.

Training to VA clinical staff is part of broader work to increase clinical adoption of HIE. It also prepares facilities for the ongoing expansion of external interoperability efforts to support modernization and seamless care coordination across federal healthcare systems.

Testing information exchange before it goes live

To ensure VA provides the most accurate and up-to-date information for clinicians, data quality checks are performed to verify that health records exchanged between VA and non-VA partners are accurate and complete. VA recently completed testing with five non-VA providers supporting the Charles George Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center in Asheville, North Carolina.

Testing verifies that documents exchanged between VA and community partners are accurate and are usable before care coordination begins, helping to prevent errors and supporting a safer, more seamless experience for Veterans and providers.

Supporting the future of interoperability

VA is also improving how consent management and interoperability analytics is shared with non-VA and community providers, helping them connect with VA systems and properly identifying the Veterans they serve.

These initiatives continue to advance VA’s mission of helping providers access the right information at the right time to deliver safe, coordinated care for Veterans wherever they receive it.

Read about past efforts to improve data sharing and visit VA’s VHIE website to learn more.