S.Amdt. 2917

SA 2917. Mr. CASSIDY submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
to amendment SA 2910 proposed by Mr. Shelby to the bill H.R. 5895,
making appropriations for energy and water development and related
agencies for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2019, and for other
purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of title II of division C, add the following:

SEC. 2__. PILOT PROGRAM ON SECURE, PATIENT-CENTERED, PORTABLE
MEDICAL RECORDS STORAGE SYSTEM OF DEPARTMENT OF
VETERANS AFFAIRS.

(a) Pilot Program.--Not later than 180 days after the date
of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of Veterans
Affairs shall commence a pilot program under which veterans
who are enrolled in the patient enrollment system of the
Department of Veterans Affairs under section 1705 of title
38, United States Code, use a portable medical records
storage system described in subsection (e) to store and share
with health care providers of the Department and community
health care providers records of their individual medical
history.
(b) Selection of Locations.--The Secretary shall select not
less than one Veterans Integrated Services Network of the
Department in which to carry out the pilot program under
subsection (a).
(c) Contracts.--
(1) Authority.--The Secretary shall seek to enter into a
contract using competitive procedures with an appropriate
entity for the provision of the medical records storage
system described in subsection (e).
(2) Notice of competition.--Not later than 60 days after
the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall
issue a request for proposals for the contract described in
paragraph (1). Such request shall be full and open to any
contractor that has an existing commercially available
medical records storage capability described in subsection
(e).
(3) Selection.--Not later than 120 days after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall award a
contract to an offeror pursuant to the request for proposals
under paragraph (2) if at least one acceptable offer is
submitted.
(d) Duration of Pilot Program.--
(1) In general.--The Secretary shall carry out the pilot
program under this section for a period of not less than one
year.
(2) After initial period.--After carrying out the pilot
program for one year, the Secretary may terminate the
program, continue the program, expand the program to include
additional locations, or implement the use of portable
medical records storage systems on a national basis.
(e) Requirements of Portable Medical Records Storage
System.--A medical records storage system described in this
subsection is a physical device that meets the following
requirements:
(1) Capability to store not less than four gigabytes of
electronic health records on a physical device, which is not
larger than the dimensions of a credit card, issued to each
veteran enrolled in the pilot program.
(2) Capability to be used by substantially all electronic
health records systems certified by the Office of the
National Coordinator for Health IT on or before January 1,
2017.
(3) Capability to limit access to electronic health records
stored on each device to the patient and health care
providers.
(4) Capability for health care providers to securely
access, annotate, and add electronic health records to the
physical device, including in instances in which the health
care provider is not in possession of the physical storage
device.
(5) Requirement that all electronic health records
transferred from a health care provider over the internet to
the physical storage device be encrypted.
(6) Requirement that the portable medical records system
can operate without persistent storage of any electronic
health records on the internet or within a cloud computing
repository.
(7) Capability to provide a replacement device containing
up-to-date electronic health records if the original physical
storage device has been removed from the owner's possession
or otherwise rendered inoperable.
(f) Definitions.--In this section:
(1) Dimensions of a credit card.--The term ``dimensions of
a credit card'' means three and three-eighths inches in
width, two and one-eighth inches in length, and five-one
hundred twenty-eighths of one inch in depth.
(2) Electronic health records.--The term ``electronic
health records'' means electronic documentation of
physicians' notes, electronic viewing of lab test results,
diagnostic images and video, clinical decision support, and
interoperability with other systems.
(g) Prohibition on New Appropriations.--No additional funds
are authorized to be appropriated to carry out the
requirements of this section. Such requirements shall be
carried out using amounts otherwise authorized to be
appropriated for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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