VA seeks to turn employee-generated ideas into reality

The Veterans Affairs Department wants to turn ideas its employees generated under an innovation contest into reality. Since late May, the department has released 17 proposals to develop some of the winning ideas in its health information technology competition, which drew ideas from more than 6,500 employees of the Veterans Health Administration.

Peter Levin, VA's chief technology officer, said in an interview the fact that the department has put out 17 of the 26 winning ideas for refinement and development on the Federal Business Opportunities website "shows we are serious about institutionalizing innovation."

In announcing the winners of the Veterans Affairs Innovation Initiative, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said the employee ideas "will help the department improve health care quality, access and transparency in service to our nation's veterans."

Levin said VA plans to back up its commitment to innovation with funding and has allocated $15 million to translate the health IT ideas into concrete programs.

To pick the winners in the contest, VA relied on a panel of judges that included Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and a veterans advocate; Dr. Harvey Fineberg, president of the Institute of Medicine within the National Academy of Sciences; Dr. Robert Kolodner, former national coordinator for health information technology at the Health and Human Services Department; and Todd Park, chief technology officer at HHS.

Last fall, VA ran a similar innovation competition for employees of the Veterans Benefits Administration that drew 3,000 entries. Levin said VA has allocated $5 million to fund development of the winning ideas in that contest.

Levin said VA also is using an $80 million fund to develop ideas the private sector has generated in areas such as telehealth, improvement of polytrauma care and reduction of adverse drug events. Proposals in that competition are due Sept. 30.

Below are the 17 winning Veterans Affairs Innovation Initiative projects listed in Federal Business Opportunities:

--Use a module in the VA Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) to better manage supervision of the 36,000 medical residents in VA hospitals

--Integrate a surgical module into CPRS

--Integrate primary care providers pager phone number into veterans records in CPRS

--Develop tools to make it easier for intake personnel at VA hospitals to easily determine veterans' eligibility for certain types of health care

--Develop a touch screen device to help emergency room nurses better manage triage

--Develop illustrated medication instructions for VA patients that are easier to read and comprehend than current text instructions

--Develop a module in the VA prescription system to insure patients are not given refills for a prescription until every pill in the original is used

--Shift clinical instructions for radiologists from a paper-based system to an electronic system integrated with CPRS

--Develop a VA-specific, robust search engine to help employees easily locate and access VA forms, reference material and regulatory information

--Develop an improved search function for CPRS to make it easier to retrieve relevant patient data

--Develop an online system that can be used by veterans to track their mail order prescriptions

--Improve integration of VA behavioral health software used to track conditions such as depression, anxiety and substance abuse with CPRS

--Improve clinical quality control measures with a new graphical user interface for the VA electronic health record

--Develop a hands-free, voice wireless communications system for hospital personnel that can operate over already installed Wi-Fi networks

--Integrate clinical decision support software into CPRS

--Add patients' photos to the opening screen of CPRS to insure that a clinician is treating the right patient with a common name

--Develop an electronic e-discharge system for patients when they leave a hospital, replacing a paper-based cumbersome system that takes 42 steps to complete