Senators pressed officials from the Veterans Affairs Department to address cost and usability issues hindering the rollout of VA’s multi-billion dollar Oracle-Cerner Millennium electronic health record system during a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies hearing on Wednesday.
Dr. Shereef Elnahal, VA’s undersecretary for health, said he has “deep concerns about the system as it’s functioning for frontline employees and service to veterans,” noting that he visited the VA Central Ohio Healthcare System in Columbus earlier this year following the medical center’s EHR deployment and “saw folks struggling with this system deeply.” …
Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., who chairs the subcommittee, reiterated his support for VA’s EHR modernization efforts, calling it “an extremely important effort to solve a decades-long problem.” But Heinrich expressed concern about VA’s transparency throughout the EHR deployment process, citing cost overruns that were not initially conveyed to Congress when the program was launched and an implementation process that has been hindered by delays and functionality concerns.
“I am glad VA is not rushing deployments until there’s more confidence in the likelihood of success, but the department needs to be straightforward with Congress about what is reasonable and achievable,” Heinrich said… Read the full article here.
