VA begins digitalizing healthcare data

Editor's Note

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has started converting older, inactive paper healthcare records to electronic health records (EHRs) in an effort to reduce the amount of office space used for storage of patient records and to streamline the claims processes, the April 24 EHR intelligence reports.

This modernization will give claims processors the ability to instantly access millions of inactive claim records when needed and cut delays due to digital conversion or shipping of paper records. Nearly 2 million inactive files were stored in 33 regional offices before the decision was made to digitalize them. 

The VA expects to have removed and scanned all paper claims records from regional offices and entered the data into its computer system by the end of 2018. As of April 14, more than half a million files had been retrieved from 8 regional offices for scanning, the report says.

Source: Thinkstock. - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recently began the process of digitizing health data from older inactive paper health records to streamline claims processes and reduce the amount of office space used to store physical patient health information.