"HealtheVet will offer the Department of Veterans Affairs unparalleled levels of information sharing, providing immediate access to a complete, integrated medical record anywhere and at any time. This collaborative initiative will help improve our ability to foster a seamless transition to Veteran life for our nation's service members, provide interdisciplinary clinical care, and ultimately reduce operating costs, all of which improve our ability to provide better services to our Veterans and their families."-- Dr. Paul Tibbits, Deputy Chief Information Officer, Office of Enterprise Development
In 2004, the Department of Veterans Affairs established the HealtheVet program (HeV), an initiative that migrates the functions and features of VA's award-winning electronic medical record system, VistA. Built on a robust, 21st-century architecture, the HealtheVet platform will allow a Veteran access to a complete, lifelong medical record. HealtheVet will create a more nimble, cost-effective IT environment developed with today's mobile Veteran population in mind while increasing flexibility to meet legislative requirements and Congressional mandates, respond to national emergencies, and implement new health care models and Veterans services.
VISTA
The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) provides world-class health care through the VistA system, a complete hospital information system that delivers fast, extensible and most user-support functionality. VistA includes over 100 individual applications spread over 128 systems, located at 113 sites.
HEALTHEVET
HealtheVet will host the new generation of Veterans Health Administration (VHA) clinical applications on a Veteran-centric, Service-Oriented Architecture framework that provides web accessibility whenever feasible. This new generation began with the deployment of Enrollment System Redesign (ESR) version 3.0 and its associated Common Services. Released nationally on March 30, 2009, ESR v3.0 is a re-hosted/reengineered replacement for the nationally authoritative Health Eligibility Center's legacy application of Atlanta, GA. It is the first major application to reside on VA's HealtheVet platform and provides a robust, scalable environment assuring that VA will continue to meet current and future needs of our Veterans.
Many HealtheVet applications will utilize the informational backbone provided by the Clinical Data Repository/Health Data Repository (CHDR), which is operational at 7 VA sites nationally. Clinical data repositories are collections of clinical information residing on one or more independent platforms. They are used by clinicians and other personnel to facilitate longitudinal patient-centric care. Data in the repositories is retrieved from existing VistA files and organized in a format that supports the delivery of care, regardless of the patient's location or previous place of treatment.
Following on the success of ESR v3.0, VA's next steps include a comprehensive assessment of the objectives of HealtheVet, including the refinement of requirements and an exhaustive, integrated program plan. Some of the next applications slated for deployment into the HealtheVet environment include:
- The Pharmacy Reengineering (PRE) Project, which will replace current pharmacy applications with an integrated state-of-the-art system. PRE facilitates improved VA pharmacy operations, customer service and patient safety through full reengineering of VA pharmacy applications.
- The Laboratory System Re-engineering Project, which is aimed at replacing the current VHA Laboratory Information System. The primary goal is to provide a reengineered Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) that supports Pathology & Laboratory Medicine Services (P&LMS). The new system will enhance operational efficiencies, enable the sharing of information, and improve data integrity while supporting VHA's strategic goal of ensuring timely responses to changes in the clinical, business, and regulatory environments.
- A suite of "common services" will provide an efficient, solid foundation for the HealtheVet applications. These common services will reduce network traffic, provide security, and enhance response time. One of the common services currently in testing is the HealtheVet Web Services Client (HWSC), which provides a bridge that allows queries from the current VistA environment to the new and future HealtheVet applications.
WHERE CAN I LEARN MORE?
A number of HealtheVet initiatives are taking place throughout VA. The links below will take you to further information about programs that are currently under development to become part of the HealtheVet platform or will ultimately be migrated to the HealtheVet platform.
- My HealtheVet: the award-winning web-based VA tool for Veteran self-management of records will provide a gateway for some HealtheVet services.
- VistA Monograph: a comprehensive description of the modules included in the current VistA system, the 2008-2009 Monograph also includes information about the future of HealtheVet.
- The VistA Documentation Library provides additional information regarding HealtheVet products.
