Twenty-six health IT ideas, out of the 6,500 entered in the Veterans Health Administration/Office of Information and Technology (VHA/OIT) Innovation Competition, will be used by the VA to improve care for Veterans.
The VHA/OIT Innovation Competition was launched as an employee competition in February 2010 to solicit healthcare IT solutions that will move the VA forward in its transformation to a provider of 21st-century services for the nation's Veterans.
The 26 VHA/OIT Innovation Competition winners represent 23 VA medical centers, program offices, or regional healthcare entities from 17 states. The chosen innovations will receive funding and support for prototype development and implementation, said officials.
"At VA, we are constantly looking for new ways to improve the care we deliver," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. "The employees who participated in this competition exhibited tremendous creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. Their ideas will help the department improve healthcare quality, access, and transparency in service to our nation's veterans."
The list of the 26 winning ideas are on the next page.
The 26 VHA/OIT Innovation Competition Winning Innovations are:
- Reducing healthcare associated infections using informatics
- CPRS (Computerized Patient Record System) -based automated queries and reports
- Robust VA forms search engine
- Augment CPRS with standards-based decision support engine
- Enhanced care management to facilitate case management and chronic disease care
- Integration of behavioral health lab and CPRS for mental health primary care
- E-discharge pilot program
- Show patient picture in CPRS
- CPRS enhancement for veteran-centered care
- "Parking" outpatient prescriptions to prevent waste
- Suicide hotline: be a hero, save a hero
- Touch screen device support for nursing triage of patients
- Tools for front line veteran eligibility staffing
- VA-wide core collection of knowledge based information resources
- Integrate VistA surgery package with CPRS
- Illustrated medication instructions for veterans
- Share verified insurance info via use of the master patient index
- Veteran online tracking of mail prescription delivery
- Search function in CPRS
- Accessible contact information for all assigned care providers
- Online radiology protocoling tool integrated within CPRS/VistA
- Wireless voice communications with hands free options
- Improved access to military personnel records
- Brief resident supervision index
- Emergency medical response team communication
- Reduce unnecessary/duplicate lab tests by rules-based algorithms
