GAO-Streamling Military Health Records

The U.S. Defense Department and the Department of Veteran Affairs have agreed  to develop a joint computerized system for health care records that could provide a single source of data on a veteran’s health from enlistment through death after the Government Accountability Office issued a report that the departments were behind in developing a shared system. The report said both departments had spent billions of dollars upgrading their data systems in ways that did not increase coordination between their systems. The shared system could:

• speed up care for veterans
• allow reserachers and epidemiologists to discover health care trends
• lower costs by making administrative duties more efficient