Leading Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs committees have introduced legislation to enhance oversight of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ beleaguered rollout of its new multi-billion dollar Oracle Cerner electronic health record system.
The slate of bills comes as VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization program has faced significant challenges in its effort to upgrade the department’s legacy system, known as the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, or VistA…
One factor in the department’s rollout pause is the ongoing negotiations between Oracle Cerner and VA over the current contract, with VA officials reportedly waiting to see how discussions play out before resuming deployments of the new system. The current contract is set to expire May 16, and VA Secretary Denis McDonough previously told lawmakers during a March 29 House Appropriations Committee hearing that, “I need to see what happens in this contract before we make a decision about where we go next anyway, because the contract may not be what we need.” …
Introduced by Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan.—the panel’s ranking member—and 12 Republican co-sponsors on March 29, the legislation would prohibit McDonough from approving deployments of the Oracle Cerner software at additional VA medical facilities until he submits written confirmation to the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs committees that the system has met outlined “improvement objectives.”
These objectives include confirmation of “the achievement of a minimum uptime and system-wide stability standard for the electronic health record system,” as well as a report detailing “the completion status of corrections to the customization and configuration of workflow designs” and confirmation “that the staff and infrastructure of such facility are adequately prepared to receive such system.” … Read the full article here.
