The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments are making progress in their efforts to electronically share patient health data, but they still have a long road ahead before they can exchange health information seamlessly, the Government Accountability Office reported this week.

GAO praised the departments' development of data repositories that will eventually be linked by an interface to let users share all health information.

Now that both repositories are running, the agencies have begun to populate them with some types of health information. The interface has been implemented at seven sites, allowing DOD and VA to share outpatient pharmacy and drug allergy information.

DOD and VA have also tackled several short-term goals, including the one-way transfer of patient information from DOD to VA for service members who are discharged from active-duty ? an obstacle GAO cited in previous reports.

Despite these steps forward, more work remains, and future success depends on a clear and definitive strategy and effective management, according to the report.

"Besides extending the current capability throughout VA and DOD, the departments must still agree to standards for the remaining categories of medical information, populate the data repositories with this information, complete the development of the two modernized health information systems, and transition from their existing systems," GAO said.

GAO added that although the agencies' advancements in long- and short-term projects are encouraging and worthy of recognition, it is still unclear how those individual efforts will be integrated into a comprehensive project for data sharing and interoperability.