Special Journal Supplement on EHR Transition Challenges in VA Health Care

Researchers David Haggstrom MD, MAS, and Michael Weiner, MD, MPH from Regenstrief Institute and US Department of Veterans Affairs, along with 4 guest editors, developed a special supplement for a national journal, aiming to address the various issues that can arise during the transition of a health care system to a new electronic health record (EHR) system, according to a news release published through the American Association for the Advancement of Science EurekAlert system.

“The transition of the VA’s EHR to a new platform is a generational experience given the nationwide size and scale of the VA healthcare system,” said Dr Haggstrom, the Center for Health Services Research Director at Regenstrief. “Research will continue to play a critical role in generating data that evaluates the impact and implementation of changing technologies.”

The Journal of General Internal Medicine published a special supplement focusing on various topics related to EHR systems, including data integrity, security, and patient care. This supplement is intended to help people understand the complexity of transitioning to new EHR systems. It consists of 12 research and 5 perspective articles that provide new scientific insights, commentary, and knowledge about EHR transitions and their impacts. The content examines the VA, the largest integrated health care system in the US and one of the largest in the world, and non-VA facilities across diverse organizational and geographic settings. Medical institutions have increasingly adopted and updated EHR systems, especially since the passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act in 2009.

The special supplement editors developed the goals, wrote the introductory editorial, established a guest editorial board, issued a call for submissions, oversaw the peer-review process, identified expert commentators, interacted with the journal staff and editorial board, and made final decisions about content.

“Most medical institutions have significant experience with adopting EHR systems, due to factors such as institutional mergers, costs of system maintenance and needs for increased functionality. Transitions from one such system to another have become more common,” said Dr Weiner. “All medical institutions undergoing this type of transition will need to understand the difficulties, to inform decisions and maximize success.”

Reference

EurekAlert! Regenstrief, VA researchers co-edit journal special supplement addressing far-reaching impact of EHR transitions. Published October 26, 2023. Accessed November 3, 2023. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1005975