title: Assessments of the Veteran Medication Allergy Knowledge Gap and Potential Safety Improvements with the Veteran Health Information Exchange (VHIE).
abstract: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Veteran Health Information Exchange (VHIE, formerly Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record, or VLER) had been deployed at all VA sites and used to exchange clinical information with private sector healthcare partners nationally. This paper examined VHIE's effect on allergy documentation. Review of all inbound VHIE transactions in FY14 showed that VHIE use was associated with a nearly eight-fold increase in allergy documentation rate. Preliminary manual document review further showed that VA and partners had shared knowledge of only 38% ofpatient allergies, while VA had exclusive knowledge of another 58% ofpatient allergies, and partners had exclusive knowledge of the last 5% of patient allergies. To our knowledge, this is the first study that examined the effect of HIE on allergy documentation.
authors.affiliation: Westat, Rockville, MD; US Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pan
authors.affiliation: Westat, Rockville, MD; US Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.
authors.forename: Nathan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Botts
authors.affiliation: Westat, Rockville, MD; US Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.
authors.forename: Harmon
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jordan
authors.affiliation: Westat, Rockville, MD; US Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.
authors.forename: Lois
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Olinger
authors.affiliation: US Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.
authors.forename: Margaret
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Donahue
authors.affiliation: US Department of Veterans Affairs, Washington, DC.
authors.forename: Nelson
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Hsing
mesh_terms: D066275:Health Information Exchange; D006801:Humans; D006967:Hypersensitivity; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized; D061214:Patient Safety; D014481:United States; D014493:United States Department of Veterans Affairs; D014728:Veterans