VA-DOD health data exchange may be down for a month

It looks like the Veterans Affairs Department was too optimistic in predicting it would soon resume the VA-Defense Department exchange of patient medical information after a shutdown of the system on March 1. The exchange was halted because errors were popping up in the data on a regular basis.

Roger Baker, the VA’s CIO, now says the exchange system may be down for a month, according to a report by Bob Brewin in Nextgov on March 16. Meanwhile, the VA and DOD are using paper and fax machines to handle the patient data.

In a followup to another developing VA news story, the Personal Health Information Privacy blog obtained some interesting comments from a Kaiser Permanente spokesman regarding Kaiser's cybersecurity protocols for veterans taking part in a VA-Kaiser health data exchange in San Diego.