There in lies the rub. The VA indeed has a very good and functional EMR system, and it was available at very low or no cost to whatever US hospital system wanted to use it. However, with support from the Obama administration a very expensive and dysfunctional system called EPIC has been adopted by a very large and growing number of hospital systems across the US.
EPIC was built upon a billing program, and what it primarily tries to do is coordinate ‘work’ that you do with the proper billing codes, and the determination of ‘work’ that a physician does is based literally upon clicking on screen ‘boxes’ during the visit. Seriously. When EPIC is instituted into a hospital system that didn't have it before, they are generally only going back 2-3 years in what they input into each patients record. So It wouldn't matter that your doc has information on you from age 18-46. EPIC would only have actual records from the past 2-3 years. The details of a surgery you might have had at 20 would not be in EPIC.
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that the vast majority of physicians would be very happy with a system that made patient care better and more efficient, irrespective of having to learn a new system etc. That's not the case with EPIC. The bean counters and ‘outcomes analysis’ statisticians have this grandiose idea that they are going to be able to track the health of all Americans electronically, and monitor disease patterns and trends, and physician compliance with ‘guidelines’ etc all from the comfort of their laptops or tablets. The problem is that as with all databases, if it's garbage in then it will be garbage out.
I have little doubt that a few programmers and actual practicing physicians sitting down together could hammer out a much, much better system in a short time at a fraction of the cost.
Oh. I am sorry. I did not know that. I can see why this would be unacceptable. I am sure that Obama picked this one because he would’t want to be seen as supporting the troops at all even if it is not good for the country (his requested electronic records system).