“The Department of Veterans Affairs’ No. 2 will oversee the agency’s troubled electronic health records modernization program, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said Tuesday.”
“Donald Remy became the first Senate confirmed deputy secretary since Feb. 3, 2020, when then-Secretary Robert Wilkie fired James Byrne. By law, the deputy secretary is the highest official overseeing the $16 billion, 10-year program. McDonough swore in Remy July 19, after lobbying Congress over the senior official’s delayed confirmation…”
“Remy has already chaired two meetings on the program since being sworn in, the secretary said. The EHR program is designed to migrate patient records from the legacy Veterans Health Information System and Technology Architecture (VistA) to a Cerner-built cloud that will be interoperable with the Military Health System. The goal is by the time the program is fully implemented, service members will be able to transition seamlessly from DOD to VA health care, instead of needing to carry around stacks of paper forms as is current practice…”
“Following the strategic review, the VA said it would focus on eight points of improvement in order to get the massive modernization program back on track after its initial go-live in Spokane, Washington. All future rollouts have been paused for the remainder of calendar 2021, with a new schedule anticipated to be created in early 2022…” Read the full article here.
Source: VA Deputy Secretary takes charge of oversight of troubled EHR program – By Jackson Barnett, July 27, 2021. FedScoop.
