JASON GOREY: The VA Is Finally Catching Up With The 21st Century

America’s veterans deserve world-class 🏥Healthcare. But for years, the infrastructure established to meet their needs has fallen short.

Foremost among the shortcomings is the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) computer software system that can generously be described as a decades-old, outdated mess.

In fact, it long ago stopped even being a system. Since the 1980s (and even further back), each VA hospital has been operating in a siloed environment and unilaterally changing its computer software. There is some logic to customization and each hospital being able to innovate and tailor software to serve its veterans best.

However, the larger VA system wasn’t designed to recognize and implement those changes to ensure interoperability and continuity.

As a result, every software modification a VA hospital independently applies moves it further away from compatibility with other VA hospitals, as well as any other health-care records system on the planet. Now, nearly half a century into VA software deployment, the health records of our nation’s heroes are marooned within individual hospitals from which they cannot digitally escape.

This reality has created an entirely avoidable records nightmare for the veterans — and everyone else involved in their care. Any time a veteran travels outside the bounds of his local VA hospital–he leaves behind his health records. No other medical office he visits — government or private — can access his or her records.

It is 2024. This is unconscionable. And it does not take much of a logical leap to realize the catastrophic and potentially deadly consequences of this antiquated process.

Thankfully, that VA system replacement is currently underway. On a hospital-by-hospital basis–to ensure successful implementation.