HealthCast

The Department of Veterans Affairs maintains one of the most comprehensive benefits and healthcare services of any institution in the United States. Hear from VA digital services expert John Rahaghi on how the agency is further integrating its various services through the integrated Login.gov portal, and how these developments fit within VA's broader customer experience strategy.

Adm. Rachel Levine is Assistant Secretary for Health, coordinating public health efforts at the federal level. Levine discusses challenges and lessons learned from the pandemic, as well as how she is approaching other public health challenges like mental health, the opioid epidemic and more. We'll also see how innovation, intersectional health, telehealth and other approaches are key for addressin...

As America's largest civilian agency, the Department of Veterans Affairs manages one of the country's most substantial Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) programs to provide federal documents to the public upon request. Hear from VA FOIA Director Michael Sarich on how the agency is using new capacities like process automation to expedite the FOIA process and release documents more quickly and effic...

Any IT modernization strategy is most successful when it incorporates human-centered design principles. At the Department of Veterans Affairs, this ensures the veteran is at the center of its products and services. Samara Strauss, VA Product Manager at the U.S. Digital Service, discusses how her team is contributing to VA's enterprise effort to provide veterans with world-class customer service an...

Senior researchers Melissa Harris and Kate Macri break down the outcomes and observations from our latest virtual event, Infrastructure: Health IT. Topics include harnessing and harmonizing data, cloud infrastructure development, and priorities at various health agencies. Featured perspectives include leadership from NIH, CMS and more.

The Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Healthcare Equity is using the agency's increasingly sophisticated data interoperability and analytics capacities to better address key areas of health care disparity. Executive Director of the Office of Health Equity Dr. Ernest Moy breaks down how VA is leveraging its increasingly modernized health IT system to identify and bridge critical care gaps a...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has begun a process of automating the verification of health claims, bringing together newfound collaboration between both its benefits administration and health network. Hear from VA Director of Benefit Automation Paul Shute on how the agency is merging its prior work integrating service records with a new program of using medical data to ensure veterans receive...

Upon the start of the pandemic, the Army's Telemedicine & Advanced Technology Research Center (TATRC) rallied with the rest of federal health to address COVID-19. TATRC stood up the National Emergency Tele-Critical Care Network (NETCCN) to offer critical care-trained clinicians' expertise via telehealth to areas struggling with COVID-19 outbreaks. NETCCN started as a project, but federal health ag...

The single, common federal electronic health record (EHR) is reshaping how agencies deliver health care. Holly Joers, DHMS Program Executive Officer, outlines critical success factors in implementing the federal EHR and explains how her team will continue to build upon successes to ultimately enhance patient care.

Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center have turned to health IT, from electronic medical records to telehealth, to aid providers and patients in the care setting. Our guests bring their modernization story to HealthCast and detail how these technologies have served as a boon for their medical center, especially amid COVID-19.

ONC has been at work setting up the Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement, establishing information-blocking requirements, iterating on the U.S. Core Data for Interoperability and standardizing FHIR-based APIs. This groundwork is coming together to empower patients to use their health data and uplift the power of electronic health records. National Coordinator for Health IT Micky Tripath...

VHA's Innovation ecosystem is using human-centered design as the backbone of its "Reimagining Veteran Health care" project, which aims to design solutions that address critical changes in customer and employee needs and expectations following the onset of COVID-19. Brynn Cole, director of design and storytelling at VHA's Innovation Ecosystem, explains how this approach conduces more effective heal...

Synthetic data has a lot of value in health research applications. One benefit to it is that it enables decision-making without compromising on patient privacy. The Department of Veterans Affairs is expanding its use to improve veteran health. Amanda Purnell, VA's data analytics and innovation director, breaks down the Arches data program where users can readily access usable, original and derived...

The COVID-19 pandemic presented new opportunities and challenges when it comes to care and access for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Neil Evans and Leonie Heyworth discuss how they've worked together to expand health offerings, increase access to telehealth, and leverage lessons learned to combat future crises.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted critical supply chain challenges as health agencies like the Food and Drug Administration faced new, unforeseen demands. Dr. Heather Agler joins us from HIMSS 2022 to discuss how FDA investigated data and developed new methods to better inform stockpiling strategies for critical supplies like ventilators, personal protective equipment (PPE) and more, as well as sh...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has been undertaking a comprehensive overhaul of its electronic health records system, representing the largest EHR modernization program ever implemented across an American health care system. Newly appointed Executive Director of the VA Electronic Health Records Integration Office Dr. Terry Adirim discusses the agency's new EHR management structure, the lessons...

The director of FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health was elevated to chief digital health officer of global strategy and innovation. Bakul Patel discusses how he is tackling the office's newest priorities around promoting a diverse workforce, agility and health equity — all in the evolving medical device landscape that is incorporating more automation and software for all consumers.

Precision medicine has been a growing avenue for treating patients based on their individual needs and conditions, but what if we could apply those principles to nutrition? NIH is exploring these questions with its new Nutrition for Precision Health program. The program will recruit 10,000 NIH All of Us participants and leverage artificial intelligence and machine learning to explore how to drive...

The number of women veterans has tripled in the past 20 years, creating a need to provide care for women veterans and also enhance how the Department of Veterans Affairs serves them. Chief Officer for Women's Health Dr. Patricia Hayes, a psychologist by training, has made a career out of serving women. She brought more inclusive language to VA and instituted programs expanding how VA cares for wom...

The National Library of Medicine has long served as the stewards of a vast repository of medical research data. Lately, NLM has ramped up its digital services around COVID-19 data to provide genomic mapping, literature and clinical trial information for the virus. The agency's National Center for Biotechnology Information Acting Director Dr. Steve Sherry shares how this data is informing the publi...

The National Library of Medicine has long served as the stewards of a vast repository of medical research data. Lately, NLM has ramped up its digital services around COVID-19 data to provide genomic mapping, literature and clinical trial information for the virus. The agency's Center for Biotechnology Information Acting Director Dr. Steve Sherry shares how this data is informing the public health...

Amid COVID-19 and the ever-changing technology landscape, the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs and the U.S. Coast Guard are continuing on their journey to a single, common electronic health record for the nation's servicemembers and veterans. Bill Tinston joins us to recap efforts in 2021 and explain how the agencies will leverage lessons learned to continue on their successes in 2022.

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute CIO Alastair Thomson returns to HealthCast to discuss updates on the new BioData Catalyst program — an open-data cloud platform where researchers can access and bring their own data in to advance research. Since the platform has gone live, Thomson shares how it is making a difference in biomedical research.

Following a recent cybersecurity executive order, agencies face new requirements to ensure they are protected against the evolving cyber threat landscape. Kevin Fu, acting director of medical device cybersecurity at FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, dives into how the agency is developing new guidance and playbooks to guide organizations through medical device development and empha...

The Department of Veterans Affairs has expanded the scope of its remote and rural care program in order to provide critical services to veterans who might not otherwise be able to reach VA clinics. The Mobile Prosthetic and Orthotic Care program with Program Manager Danny Abrahamson and Program Coordinator Eli Kaufman has quickly turned into one of the most promising and impactful services within...