VA honored for electronic health records.

The Department of Veterans Affairs has won the prestigious Innovations in American Government Award for its model system of electronic health records. The annual award, sponsored by Harvard University's Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Kennedy School of Government, honors excellence and creativity in the public sector.

"The VA has long been a leader in innovative medicine and health care administration," said Washington Headquarters Executive Director David W. Gorman. "This award is just another indication of excellence in the veterans health care system."

Outside of VA, where patient records are not readily available, one out of seven Americans ends up hospitalized when outpatient care is all that's needed, according to the VA. For the same reason, one out of five lab tests is needlessly repeated outside the VA system. And while the costs of health care continue to soar for most Americans, the VA is reducing costs, reducing errors, and becoming the model for what modern health care management and delivery should look like.

Electronic health records also provide numerous other benefits in cost, quality and access to care, the VA says. The cost of maintaining the system is $80 per patient per year, less than the cost of one unnecessarily repeated lab test. In the last 10 years, efficiencies have offset cost increases associated with a 100 percent increase in the number of veterans receiving VA care.

Patient waiting times have declined while customer service improved, and access to care has increased because of on-line availability of health information, according to the VA.

In addition to saving money, VistA saves lives and ensures continuity of care even under the most extreme circumstances. Many of the thousands of residents who fled the Gulf Coast because of Hurricane Katrina left behind vital health records. Records for the 40,000 veterans in the area were almost immediately available to clinicians across the country, even though the VA medical center in Gulfport, Miss., was destroyed and the New Orleans VA medical center was closed and evacuated. Veterans were able to resume their treatments, refill their prescriptions, and get the care they needed because their medical records were immediately accessible to providers at other VA facilities.

VistA is one of seven government initiatives chosen from 1,000 applications to receive this year's Innovations award. Because the programs are models for government's capacity to do good, and do it well, the $100,000 grant specifically supports sharing of program information with other organizations.