...U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) to share electronic health records. The authorization represents a major milestone in one of the world’s most ambitious efforts to integrate health information, involving two major healthcare systems that are pioneers in electronic medical record keeping. Harris completed the Critical Design Review process and achieved Authorization to Operate for the initial deployment of the Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) suite that will support information sharing between the VA and the DoD. The SOA will enable new types of clinical collaboration and integration of legacy data in standard interfaces that help users to exchange information in real time, without needing to change source data or displays.

The Authorization to Operate enables Harris to deploy the solution in facilities in San Antonio, Texas, and Hampton Roads, Virginia. The rollout approach helps to optimize the capability before deploying it more broadly to VA and DoD facilities worldwide. This authorization milestone is part of a multi-year, $80 million healthcare integration contract awarded to Harris in March 2012. The contract helps the VA and DoD streamline administration and record keeping, exchange health information, contain costs, track and manage care and enhance outcomes for millions of active duty and retired military personnel and their families.

The VA and DoD have a complex suite of healthcare information systems, as well as two hundred local data centers. The SOA Suite provides a single solution for the two agencies. It will integrate existing and future systems, applications and medical data using state-of-art Commercial Off-the-Shelf and Open Source technologies to provide secure, reliable, and high-performance implementation for health record data exchange across the DoD and VA healthcare systems.