Veterans Affairs closer to deploying comprehensive e-Benefits portal

the new e vet

VA CLOSER TO DEPLOYING COMPREHENSIVE e-BENEFITS

WEB SITE -- The new version of the e-Benefits portal will

present both healthcare and benefits information.







Story here... http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0308/031408bb1.htm

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Veterans Affairs closer to deploying comprehensive e-Benefits portal

By Bob Brewin
bbrewin@govexec.com

The Veterans Affairs Department has started inching toward deployment of an online comprehensive health care and benefits portal recommended by the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors in an August 2007 report. VA expects to have a bare-bones site operating in the next few weeks on Army Knowledge On-Line (AKO), the Army's enterprise Web portal.

The Wounded Warriors Commission recommended that VA and the Defense Department develop within a year a Web-based portal to provide patients with health care and benefits information from the two departments. On March 11, top VA and Defense officials told the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee that they intend to develop Web portals that integrate veterans' heath records on a comprehensive Web site, which also provides information on follow-up services.

Retired Air Force Col. Peter Bunce, father of Justin Bunce, a medically retired Marine Corporal severely wounded in Iraq, said in an interview that a Web portal was only as good as the information it contained. He urged that Web-based systems established by Defense and VA contain information on a range of clinical resources, including care available outside the VA and Defense health systems. Bunce said he found health care and specialists for his son Justin, who also suffers from traumatic brain injury, without VA's help.

Bunce said any comprehensive Web portal should provide information based on geography, and the departments needed to devise a way to supply specialized care and benefits information to patients and their families, rather than expecting them to find it. VA also should ensure that each patient had a case manager who coordinated care -- including home visits -- and one lead doctor to manage clinical care, he added.

Dr. Paul Tibbits, VA's deputy chief information officer for enterprise development, wrote in an e-mail that the initial, unsecured eBenefits Web site available through AKO will link to other sites for use by wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans and their families. By this fall, he said, VA anticipates having a secure eBenefits portal site operational, based on the log-on model of Army Knowledge Online and its Defense Knowledge Online counterpart. This version of the eBenefits portal will present health care and benefits information as recommended by the Wounded Warriors Commission, Tibbits said.

Kevin Carroll, a consultant who previously served as program executive officer for Army's enterprise information systems, said AKO was safer and more efficient because VA will be able to tap into the AKO and DKO personnel directories and leverage those portals' already developed applications. The department then could take a "cut-and-paste" approach to development, rather than start from scratch, he said.

VA also is developing an advanced Web portal called My eBenefits, which is scheduled to go live in fiscal 2009, according to Tibbits.

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posted by Larry Scott
Founder and Editor
VA Watchdog dot Org////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

I am surprised it has taken them this long to expand the web sites and their capabilities, I have been ordering my meds on line thru the VA site for almost 2 years, I don't understand why I can't communicate with my doctor by e mail or at least a clinical nurse, get copies of treatment notes, it is way past time for the VARO to digitize our claims files, I remember decades ago when they made microfiche copies of everyone's 201 files so they could mail them around the world cheaper, promotion boards etc. Computers didn't just happen and the VA regional offices are in the stone age still, many documents of evidence are ignored because they are buried in 6 feet of paperwork rather than a digital file they can click on by the Doctors name or a word search of the file to find documents that pertain to the medical problem and the treatment and diagnosis. I doubt if it all ever gets completed in my lifetime, my father and grand father both rode in the real "calvary" in the days gone by, my grandfather in the Calif 4th Volunteers 1861-1865 and my Dad and Uncle Gideon rode with D Troop of the 7th Calvary while stationed at Camp Douglas, in Douglas, Az in 1914-1916, they made the now famous march into Mexico with General Blackjack Pershing after Pancho Villa. I have their paper records and they are not much different than mine, rank, name and service numbers and how much we all got paid. All I can say to the VA welcome to the computer age it's about time the claims side joined the advances the medical side has made, they are the leaders in digital treatment records, many civilian hospitals have adopted the VA's open source system, that is quite a testament to it's soundness.

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