DOD and VA jointly seek health records modernization director and deputy

The Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs are jointly seeking a director and deputy to oversee the $10 billion, 10-year modernization of electronic health records to the cloud.

The new director for the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization Program Office would be the first to lead the collaboration between the DOD and VA.

The migration is the latest attempt to fix longstanding issues for health records. For decades, the VA’s decentralized health record system, known as Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture or VistA, had no interoperability with existing DOD systems.

The new system will host all servicemember and veteran health records on a single cloud operated by Cerner Millennium. Earlier this week the VA announced it had transferred 78 billion records to the Cerner cloud.

Now, the VA and DOD want to hire the two top executives for the program. They will be in charge of administering the transition, a move the VA described as a “healthcare information revolution.” The positions would be based in Roslyn, Virginia, and would report directly to deputies at both the DOD and VA.

“These leaders will be central to the success of this effort, which will make it easier to provide seamless, quality care to service members and Veterans,” said Darren Sherrard, associate director of recruitment and marketing at the VA.