Medical Device Link.

Originally Published MX March/April 2005

IT IN HEALTHCARE

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) uses a single electronic health record system known as VistA (for Veterans Information Systems and Technology Architecture) throughout its 157 hospitals and 862 outpatient clinics. While many VA medical centers have local interfaces between their bedside monitors and VistA, the VA has not adopted a single interface for nationwide application. But that will soon change as the department prepares to implement a national solution that conforms with messaging standards such as HL7, DICOM, and IEEE 1073.

Julius Chou

"We're currently working with several vendors to try to establish a standard interface," says Julius Chou, associate deputy director for provider systems in the Veterans Health Administration Office of Information Health Systems Design and Development. "It'll probably be accomplished in a short period of time."

This bidirectional interface will bring patient demographic data into devices from VistA and will let device reports go directly into the EHR. Vendors and VA staff will still have to write what Chou calls decoding programs for each application, but the messaging standard will be the same in each device category. The VA is now working on standard interfaces for ECG, gastrointestinal, pulmonary function, and dialysis devices, says Chou. "Once we're finished with the national solution, every hospital will be able to use the same solution, regardless of what vendor they deal with."

In Chou's vision of the future, manufacturers in each device category agree on a messaging standard, terminology, security, electronic signature, and a method of checking patient identification. If that happened, "very intelligent devices" could send data into an EHR without an interface. "This is very ideal, but achievable if the industry decided to do it," Chou says.

Copyright ©2005 MX