“The Veterans Affairs Department’s $16 billion effort to deploy a new commercial electronic health record system will likely cost between $1 billion and $2.6 billion more than estimated, as the department failed to account for physical infrastructure costs during the planning stages, according to the inspector general.”
“VA has been working on the latest EHR program since 2018, when then-acting VA Secretary Robert Wilkie signed a contract with Cerner to provide its commercial records management software to the department. The procurement followed a similar move by the Defense Department in 2015 to contract with the Leidos Partnership for Defense Health, which includes Cerner’s EHR product.”
“’In preparation for the system’s deployment, VA medical facilities need significant upgrades to their physical infrastructure, such as electrical work, cabling, heating, ventilation, and cooling. These upgrades are critical to successful deployment of the new system and are likely to cost billions of dollars,’ the IG wrote in the latest report.”
“’However, none of the eight quarterly reports submitted by [the Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization] as of January 2021 included physical infrastructure costs in the program’s life cycle cost estimate, despite all but one of them containing language indicating that physical infrastructure costs were included. In fact, the only infrastructure costs the life cycle cost estimate included were related to information technology infrastructure,’ the report states [original emphasis].”
“The IG notes accurate cost estimates are critical for both the program managers who have to ensure they have sufficient funding in the right areas and Congress, which appropriates that funding…”
“The IG warned that current estimates are likely far too low, offering three pieces of evidence to support that claim:
- Formal cost estimates differed significantly from a subsequent higher draft estimate that relied on more detailed information.
- Estimates were partially based on physical infrastructure upgrade cost estimates for VA’s first facilities to implement the new system, which were found to be significantly lower than actual needs dictated.
- Statistical projections made by the audit team suggest that VHA’s two formal estimates for physical infrastructure costs, dated June 2019 and November 2019, may be underestimated by as much as $1 billion and $2.6 billion, respectively…” Read the full article here.
Source: IG Says VA Underestimated Health Records Project Costs by Up to $2.6B – By Aaron Boyd, May 26, 2021. Nextgov.
