WP: VA Takes the Lead in Paperless Care

There’s a very positive article in the Washington Post on the Veterans Affairs VistA software: ‘…Since 1999, the VA’s 155 hospitals, 881 clinics, 135 nursing homes and 45 rehabilitation centers have been linked by a universal medical records network. It allows any authorized person to look at 5.3 million patients’ records — everything from a nurse’s note written during a hospital stay, to the result of a blood test drawn at a clinic visit, to the moving-picture film of a coronary angiogram done in a cardiology lab.

Even though President Bush has set a goal of 2014 for when most Americans should have their medical information stored electronically, the Department of Veterans Affairs is today one of the few health systems — and by far the largest — that is virtually paperless…’

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