VA's million vets program grows
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has taken advantage of its resources to launch the Million Veterans Program (MVP), a “mega-database” that will hold genomic and clinical information for future studies about veterans who receive their care from the VA and who volunteer to participate in the program.
Launched in May 2011 by VA Chief of Staff John Gingrich, MVP now includes 40 of the 107 VA medical centers (VAMCs) that have the capacity for research.
To enroll in the MVP, veterans at the 40 participating VAMCs opt in, fill out a brief health survey and make an appointment at the VAMC to accompany their next medical visit. They are counseled about the program and given the opportunity to consent to be in the database and to make their medical records available for future studies.
Writing for the Health Affairs blog, Joel Kupersmith, MD, VA’s chief research and development officer and Timothy O’Leary, PhD, VA’s deputy chief research and development officer, said as of Oct. 29, MVP had 103,102 enrollees. Research subjects include the VA secretary, deputy secretary and chief of staff.
To help manage the vast amount of data being collected, software in a secure IT platform called GenISIS (Genomic Information System for Integrated Science) has been developed. In the future, the software will be used to identify subjects within the database for specific studies, manage clinical data, to hold the data repository, facilitate biorepository operation and host bioinformatic software to facilitate genetic analysis.
The VA will use the MVP database for the following types of studies:
- Identification and validation of genomic associations.
- Studies validating the practical value of using genomic data in guiding therapy.
- Studies of specific deployment conditions; e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as chronic conditions seen in the VA healthcare system and other healthcare systems nationwide.
“We estimate that MVP will take five to seven years to reach its enrollment goal of 1 million,” wrote Kupersmith and O’Leary.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.