Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record Reaches 3rd Anniversary

It has been three years since President Obama announced the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER) on April 9, 2009. VLER is a multi-faceted business and technology initiative that includes a portfolio of health, benefits, personnel, and administrative information sharing capabilities. It provides Veterans, Service members, their families, care-givers, and service providers with a single source of information for health and benefits in a way that is secure and is authorized by the Veteran or Service member. Access to electronic records and information is essential to modern health care delivery and the paperless administration of benefits. Standardized and secure exchange of information allows for unprecedented, seamless delivery of both health care and benefits for our nation’s Veterans and Service members.

As explained by President Obama, “When a member of the armed forces separates from the military, he or she will no longer have to walk paperwork from a [Defense Department] duty station to a local VA health center. Their electronic records will transition along with them and remain with them forever.”

Over the past three years, we’ve met some major milestones to include:

More than 1.3 million Veterans and Service members use the VLER eBenefits portal to manage their Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance (SGLI), obtain GI Bill Certificates of Eligibility, and access more than 40 capabilities made available via eBenefits.va.gov, with new capabilities being added to the eBenefits portal on a quarterly basis.

Implemented “Blue Button,” providing online self-service downloads for on-demand access to personal health information to 800k active users.

More than 2.5 million Veteran and Service member medical records have been shared via the VLER Bidirectional Health Information Exchange (BHIE) and Clinical Data Repository/Health Data Repository (CHDR) projects.

Tens of thousands of Veterans and Service members are already taking advantage of DoD and VA participation in the nationwide health information network being piloted at 12 sites across the country.

VLER has also impacted thousands of disabled Service members, including our most severely wounded, ill, and injured by automating information management and sharing between DoD and VA in support of the Federal Recovery Coordinator and Integrated Disability Evaluation System.

When VLER is fully implemented, all information needed to quickly and accurately provide services and benefits to our Veterans and Service members will be exchanged electronically and proactively, putting the right information in front of the right people at the right time for them to take action.

Check out the VLER home page for more information.

Joe Paiva is the executive director of the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER). He’s also a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve.

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