“The new multibillion dollar electronic health records programs covering the military and veteran patient populations aren’t achieving the levels of interoperability promised by officials, according to an oversight report released on Thursday.”
“The Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs separately contracted to use the Cerner Millennium electronic health care system to cover more than 18 million individuals. DOD tapped Leidos to serve as integrator of the Cerner system in 2015, and VA contracted separately with Cerner in 2018. Together, the projects are estimated to cost more than $20 billion – and the true price tag is expected to be much higher…”
“Where DOD and VA fell short, according to the report, is in migrating existing patient information to the new systems and in developing interfaces to move data from medical devices to the Cerner Millennium health record.”
“While some basic patient information like health conditions, allergies, medications, immunization records and histories of inpatient and outpatient procedures were included in the migration to Cerner, a wealth of information including patient labs, clinical notes and some diagnostic information was not included in the initial rollout of the Cerner system by either DOD or VA. (DOD is about a third of the way through its deployment; VA has gone live with Cerner in three clinical locations and has the bulk of its effort left to go.)…” Read the full article here.
Source: DOD-VA health record modernization not hitting interoperability targets, watchdogs say – By Adam Mazmanian, May 6, 2022. FCW.
