The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to partner with more applications developers to create apps that allow veterans to access health information directly from their personal devices, NextGov reports.
VA wants to focus on apps that will help veterans look up information such as their health benefits, care facilities locations and identification tools, VA CIO James Gfrerer said at an April 10 American Council for Technology and Industry Advisory Council event, according to the report.
In February, VA partnered with Apple to make its health records app, which allows iPhone users to access their medical records on the device, available to veterans. The new tool, which is the first public medical record sharing platform available to veterans under the VA's healthcare system, is expected to roll out later this year.
Apple's health records app is just the first of many health information sharing platforms the VA plans to make accessible to its patients, Mr. Gfrerer said. Last December, the VA launched its application programming interface platform, which allows third-party vendors to connect their apps with VA data.
"We're in discussions with other vendors, and there's more to come," Mr. Gfrerer said. "We want to partner more with the rest of the [developer] community. There's a really bright future with respect to apps, app development and helping veterans and others access our legacy systems."