When a service member leaves the military, their medical records often don’t follow them. That gap — between Department of Defense care and VA care — has cost veterans their health, and in too many cases, their lives. At the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center outside Chicago, something different is happening. The nation’s only fully integrated, jointly operated VA-DOD hospital has been running a single shared electronic health record across both agencies since March 2024, keeping veterans connected to the care they need during one of the highest-risk periods of their lives.
IWF board member Frank Larkin writes in Stars and Stripes about why the Lovell model matters — and why it needs to expand. For veterans living with traumatic brain injury, continuity of care isn’t a bureaucratic detail. It’s the difference between symptoms being caught early and warning signs disappearing into a system that was never designed to follow them home.
Frank Larkin in Stars and Stripes
For veterans living with traumatic brain injury, continuity of care isn’t a bureaucratic detail — it’s the difference between getting help and falling through the cracks.