DoD, VA pullback on EHRs draws fire.

• Position: EHR - Electronic health records - Brief article

Early this year the U.S. departments of Defense (DoD) and the Veterans Affairs (VA) announced they were scaling back their plans to create a single shared electronic health records (EHRs) system that would manage service members' and veterans' medical records from recruitment to grave. They decided, instead, to build their system on existing IT architecture and programs, pointing out that it would be more cost- and time-efficient.

The decision drew fire from the top lawmakers on the Senate and House Veterans' Affairs committees, which had charged the agencies in 2008 with creating and deploying an integrated health records system by 2017 at a cost of about $4 billion.

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Unfortunately, the project has reportedly met technology challenges and delays. The new approach will enable the departments to exchange real-time data by the end of the year and allow patients online access to their medical records by summer. It is also expected to save hundreds of millions of...