Appropriations bills eye tech improvements at VA

House and Senate lawmakers are poised to boost spending to record levels for the Veterans Affairs Department when they return from their August recess, with some money reserved for technology.

Pending appropriations bills would provide new funds and requirements for improving information systems and sharing electronic medical records. The fiscal 2008 bills, H.R. 2642 and S. 1645, would provide about $109 billion in total spending, of which about $65 billion would be for discretionary spending.

The funding would be the largest increase in VA's 77-year history and is about $3.8 billion more than the Bush administration's request, said House Appropriations Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Subcommittee Chairman Chet Edwards, D-Texas. The increased spending is largely a result of congressional outrage in response to reports of poor treatment of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

"This bill is about respect and honors the promises made to our veterans with historic increases in funding to provide them the health care and benefits they earned when they put on our nation's uniform," Edwards said. The House passed the legislation in June, while the Senate is expected to consider it next month.

The bills would provide about $1.9 billion for VA technology systems -- about $645 million more than Congress allocated for fiscal 2007. The funding is largely targeted to help ensure that electronic medical records, or EMRS, follow patients as they transition from the Defense Department health system to the VA system.

"It is imperative that future electronic medical-records systems, as well as systems designed to expedite the processing of benefits claims, be interoperable with systems being developed by the Department of Defense," the Senate Appropriations Committee wrote in its report on the bill. "The committee remains concerned that any deviation from interoperability would lead to further stove-piping of information, increasing lag times in processing medical records and benefits claims."

The Senate bill would direct VA to report to Congress by Jan. 31 about the steps being taken to ensure interoperability.

In its measure, the House Appropriations Committee scolded VA for developing EMRs with programming language that is not compatible with Defense health systems.

The committee report calls for blocking any expenditures on EMRs that won't work with Defense systems. It also urges VA "to involve leading software companies" so that veterans' "will be interoperable with existing systems used by the private sector, and the report advocates "a portable EMR so that veterans may have a personal electronic record of their care."

A presidential commission said in a report late last month that Defense and the VA "must move quickly to get clinical and benefit data to users." The commission, which was created in response to reports on the conditions at Walter Reed, said the two departments must make patient data much more accessible within 12 months.

The panel also recommended an online, password-protected Web site that would enable servicemen and veterans to get tailored information about relevant programs and benefits.