Closing the Data Gap: Improving Interoperability Between VA and Community Providers
House Subcommittee on Technology Modernization
2025-03-24
Loading video...
Source: Congress.gov
Participants
Transcript
Good afternoon. Subcommittee will come to order. I want to start by saying I appreciate the effort of those on the panel that are here to testify today and appreciate your willingness to come before the committee. The future, though, I would really appreciate, particularly for those here from the VA, if you can provide your testimony ahead of time. I know that a lot of work goes into that, but you know, the subcommittee staff here, myself and my staff appreciate the opportunity to review some of the commentary remarks and everything ahead of these committees and would appreciate your willingness to provide that in the timelines that we have. I feel like we've been pretty generous with the timelines we've given and it takes everybody's cooperation to make sure that we're able to do this in a timely and efficient way. So appreciate that. I asked the VA to appear today because of interoperability impacts and what it does to every veteran across our country. And the department's testimony is critical for the subcommittee's oversight requirements. Now onto today's topic. Of course, I kind of mentioned briefly about interoperability, but this is important because all across the country right now, as we're sitting here in this committee, A veteran somewhere is walking into a new doctor's office for the very first time. This veteran won't have any prior relationship with the provider they're encountering, and they may not have any of their medical records on file at that particular hospital or medical facility. This doctor's office could be at a VA medical center, could be at a community care facility. No matter the location, the doctor will have the same question. How do I give this veteran the best care without knowing their medical history, without knowing their medication, about knowing their allergies, their lab results, whether or not this veteran has struggled with mental health challenges. There are several doctors on our panel today and I'm sure they would agree that complete and accurate information is an important ingredient in high quality healthcare. Providers want their patient's healthcare data to be interoperable.
They want to be able to exchange medical records regardless of which hospital they were created at and use that information to treat their patients. I want to be clear, VA and the entire healthcare industry have made enormous progress over the last two decades, and millions of healthcare records are exchanged every single year all across our country in various ways. Even when data exchange does not happen, veterans still receive great healthcare every day when providers don't have access to their complete medical history. I know that we have very well-trained physicians who provide the absolute greatest level of care that they can. However, the best healthcare requires truly interoperable healthcare data that moves with the veteran regardless of which EHR is being used by the doctor and who is treating them. There are gaps that remain and opportunities for improvement. VA provides healthcare to millions of veterans every single year, including myself. However, roughly one third of VA care is provided by the Community Care Network. Throughout their lifetime, Veterans will visit an assortment of providers at the DOD, the VA, and private facilities. Every appointment produces new information. VA has made a ton of progress exchanging data with larger hospital systems, but struggles to exchange data with many smaller hospitals and physicians' offices. In order to live up to our commitment to veterans, VA must be able to share and use complete and accurate healthcare information with each of the community care partners. A big part of that is ensuring that when healthcare data is exchanged between VA and community care providers, it is standardized. There's only so much a provider can do with a list of lab results if each hospital documents and displays the results differently. This is the difference between a read-only file and data that is searchable, sortable, and able to be organized and utilized. The quality of the data is just as important as the quantity. That is why this committee put a requirement in the Dole Act for the VA to adopt health information interoperability standards for the department and its community care providers.
These standards are about data quality and will improve how VA and community care providers exchange data for care and benefits, patient identity matching, and more, ultimately improving outcomes for veterans inside and outside the VA. During this hearing, I hope to hear some preliminary updates on VA's strategy. In addition, I hope to hear about some of VA's recent progress and their plans to bridge the interoperability gaps that still exist. VA recently created the Veterans Interoperability Pledge, which allows private hospitals to instantly confirm whether a patient is a veteran. There are many health issues that are assumed to be linked to military service. Simply knowing that a patient is a veteran allows health care providers outside VA's system to give the best care, consider service-related health issues, and quickly connect them to the right supports where necessary. This is an important leap forward for data exchange between VA and community partners. While it's only in its infancy, I am eager to hear more about its early success and VA's plans to expand to more community care providers. VA is currently connected to over 90% of hospitals in America through health information exchanges. 10 years ago, though, VA exchanged less than 100,000 healthcare documents a year. Now, they're exchanging millions. While VA is connected to roughly 90% of US hospitals, the last 10% are the hardest to reach.
Sign up for free to see the full transcript
Accounts help us prevent bots from abusing our site. Accounts are free and will allow you to access the full transcript.