Just back from a recent trip to Iraq, VA Secretary James Peake, told Washington-based defense reporters Thursday (see above) that electronic health records are being kept very early on in the treatment process for wounded service members and are being passed along to better prepare medical personnel in Germany and back in the US. “I look at these two systems as a continuity,” Peake said of the DOD and VA health care apparatuses, adding that he hopes to see the use of electronic records increase even more. Eliminating paperwork will be a critical aspect of reducing the enormous backlog the VA is experiencing in processing disability and benefit claims, he said. A younger, tech-savvy workforce will be better able to determine if an injury is related to military service, he noted. Calling the claims bureaucracy a “1945 process,” Peake said 65 percent of the claims process is spent just gathering information on paper, a process that could be immeasurably helped with greater information sharing between DOD and VA.
VIDEO: 4 Principles of Agile JADC2 Development
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Innovation has always been a hallmark of the U.S. Air Force. But with the accelerating pace of technology development, the service needs a new approach to modern design to make the latest technologies profoundly more accessible.