The top Republican on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee on Wednesday expressed an openness to scrapping the Veterans Affairs Department’s multi-billion dollar Oracle-Cerner Millennium electronic health record system, if serious deficiencies in the rollout of the new software are not addressed by the end of the year.
Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., ranking member of the full committee, said that Congress “has to set a deadline” for the EHR system rollout, and if there isn’t major progress by early next year, “we will have to seriously consider pulling the plug.” Bost added that he “will be writing legislation to do just that.”…
“The bill is in the drafting stage and the final product will depend on the initial progress, if any, that VA and Cerner make over the next few months addressing the serious problems at the initial rollout sites,” Gonzalez told Nextgov. “At this point, the Ranking Member is considering all legislative options, including reorienting or completely halting the project.”
The VA signed a $10 billion contract with Cerner in 2018 to implement the new EHR system over a 10-year period, to replace its prior customized health information system, the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, or VistA. The new EHR software is currently in use at five VA medical sites, but software outages, logistical delays and technical issues have hampered the rollout… Read the full article here.
