The Department of Veterans Affairs has chosen the Buffalo, N.Y., region as the newest pilot site for the agency's Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record project, Health Data Management reports.
In the 2009, VA and the Department of Defense launched the VLER program to share health data on veterans and active military personnel with civilian health care providers (Goedert, Health Data Management, 8/16).
The Buffalo region is one of 11 demonstration sites for the VLER project that are expected to be in place by the end of September. VA said it plans to roll out the VLER program nationwide in July 2012.
Western New York's regional health information exchange -- called HEALTHeLINK -- will coordinate the sharing of service members' EHRs through the Nationwide Health Information Network, according to a HEALTHeLINK release.
VA plans to contact veterans living in the region about participating in the pilot program. Those interested in participating will need to sign consent forms (Mosquera, Government Health IT, 8/16).