VA, DOD agree on single lifetime personnel identifier

Via GovHealth

The Veterans Affairs and the Defense departments have agreed on a single common personal identifier, one of the keys to its efforts to build an electronic record that can be  follow military service members throughout their lifetimes.

The agreement is a significant step toward making the complex Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER) project a reality because it will identify a service member whether they are seeking healthcare services or  payment benefits and on active duty or retired, according to a senior VA  official.

“Without it, we couldn’t do VLER,” said Roger Baker, the VA chief information officer, during an Aug. 11 briefing with reporters.

VLER is the Obama administration’s effort to develop a single electronic record to manage all administrative and medical information of military service members and veterans from their induction through the remainder of their lives.

VA generates a so-called EDI PI (for Electronic Data Interchange–Personal Identifier) number as a tacking tool when a person signs up for military service.  The VA decided about a month ago to use the same number in tracking that person throughout their status as a veteran. The VA typically issues multiple identifying numbers for a person, Baker said.

Although a person is not aware of the number, it is critical from the point of view of the way IT systems work. With a single identifier, DOD and VA systems will be assured that they have the same individual.

Even so, for healthcare, VA will also continue to use its health patient identifier number in addition to the EDI PI identifier.

“We have gone from an individual having a variety of different numbers that are tracked within the various organizations to moving toward a single number that we can all agree on is the identification number for the individual,” Baker said, adding that it is not the individual’s Social Security number.

VA also plans to provide every DOD service member a log-in for the VLER e-benefits portal and that the log-in transfers with them to the VA portion of the portal. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a service member or veteran,” Baker said. “You can go to a single portal to see your benefits.”.