The Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Defense have reached an agreement to assign a single lifetime personal identifier that would follow a service member from enlistment until death, Federal Computer Week reports. The VA began using the DoD's Electronic Data Interchange Personal Identifier (EDIPI), a step VA CIO Roger Baker called "fundamental" for implementation of the joint VA/DoD Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record (VLER). Baker also said in a conference call with reporters that the VA will make a decision by the end of the year on how to modernize the powerful but aging Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) EMR. Article