The Bidirectional Health Information Exchange (BHIE) is a joint information technology data exchange initiative between the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DoD). BHIE permits VA and DoD clinicians to view electronic healthcare data from each other's systems, VA's Computerized Patient Record System (CPRS) and DoD's Composite Health Care System (CHCS).  The data are shared bidirectionally, in real time, for patients who receive care from both VA and DoD facilities.  Currently, the data that are made viewable bidirectionally using BHIE are as follows:

• Outpatient pharmacy data
• Allergy data
• Patient identification correlation
• Laboratory result data including surgical pathology reports, cytology and microbiology data, chemistry and hematology data
• Lab orders data
• Radiology reports

BHIE is implemented at select DoD military facilities and at all VA medical facilities.  BHIE permits DoD providers to view BHIE data from all VA medical facilities and VA to view BHIE data from the DoD facilities where BHIE is implemented.  VA and DoD are continuing to support the expansion of BHIE to additional DoD facilities.
 

As part of VA and DoD's joint work pursuant to the 2003 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) Demonstration Site provisions, VA and DoD have worked to enhance BHIE in the El Paso, Texas and the Puget Sound Northwest areas.  The work products from these pilot sites expands enterprise-wide use of BHIE to increase the types of data shared by VA and DoD clinicians.  For example, VA and DoD successfully completed work on sharing radiology images through BHIE and is awaiting VA enterprise-wide deployment.  In the Puget Sound area, VA and DoD are working to share inpatient discharge summaries and other narrative documents.  Initial testing of both initiatives has been successful.

DoD/VA Bidirectional Health Information Exchange (BHIE) - CHDR Interface

DoD and VA are developing an interface between the Bidirectional Health Information Exchange (BHIE) and "CHDR", which permits data sharing between the DoD Clinical Data Repository (CDR) and VA Health Data Repository (HDR).  This BHIE-CHDR interface is being developed to increase the number of DoD sites that are able to share viewable data with VA. 

Presently, not all DoD sites are capable of sharing BHIE data with VA.  The BHIE-CHDR interface will permit DoD to transmit BHIE data through its CDR which is fully deployed across the DoD enterprise as part of DoD's health information system known as "AHLTA."  Using the CHDR interface, the BHIE data elements will be made available to VA in a viewable format as they currently are through BHIE. 

DoD and VA are planning to increase the types of data that will be shared through BHIE and the BHIE-CHDR interface.  The departments are working together to add domains such as patient problem lists and encounter notes to the list of available data types shared by VA and DoD clinicians.

BHIE One of Top 5 Excellence.Gov 2006 Award Winners