Citing more billions of dollars to be spent by the Department of Veterans Affairs over the next few years on a new electronic health record system that has been difficult to implement, Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., said he wants to stop deploying the Oracle Cerner EHR system as soon as possible.
WHY IT IMPORTANT
As she enters her second term serving on the House Veterans Affairs Committee, Rosendale will now chair the Technology Modernization Legislative Subcommittee, the watchdog and investigative authority over crimes VA enterprise technology modernization program and project.
According to a notice, the VA EHR termination bill introduced last week will, within 180 days of passage:
- Abolish the Integrated Office to modernize electronic health records.
- Transfer remaining operations to the Veterans Affairs Health Administration or the Office of Information and Technology.
- Revert all medical centers that use Oracle Cerner EHR to VA’s existing EHR platform: Technology Architecture and Veterans Health Information Systems (VistA).
- Gradually end the Oracle Cerner contract by preventing the Minister from exercising any options.
Rosendale has harshly criticized the VA’s new EHR since 2021, citing operational inadequacies and the cost of government funding.
Oracle completed its acquisition of Cerner in June at a cost of more than $28 billion.
Rosendale said in her VA EHR termination bill announcement that since 2018, the VA has spent $5 billion on Oracle Cerner EHR at a handful of its 171 health centers.
“Additionally, the VA acknowledges that the new system has created unacceptable levels of productivity loss, patient safety risks, and staff burnout at these five small and medium-sized facilities, ” he added.
A separate bill was also introduced last week, the VA Electronic Health Records Modernization Improvement Act, by Representative Mike Bost, R-Ill., Chairman of the House Committee on Public Affairs. veterans, will only allow additional deployments of the VA EHR planned for 2023 with certification that improvements have been made.
“Specifically, each VA medical center director, chief of staff, and network director will be required to confirm that the EHR system has been correctly configured for the location, staff, and infrastructure. suitable to support the system and it will not negatively affect safety, quality or existing wait times,” according to a fact sheet about the proposed legislation on the commission’s website.
“In addition, the VA and Oracle Cerner cannot begin preparing to go live at additional health centers until the Secretary confirms that the system has achieved 99.9 uptime and the fixes technical fault, as directed in the contract, has been made.”
TREND TO BIGGER WOMAN
In July, the VA Inspector General’s Office released its final report on the implementation of Oracle Cerner EHR at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center, which found 149 cases of patients harmed by a technical malfunction. art.
“From the time the facility opened in October 2020 to June 2021, the new EHR was unable to deliver more than 11,000 orders for requested clinical services,” the report said.
The system slowdown was recently reported by the Mann Grandstaff Medical Center, located in Spokane, Washington.
As reported by Spokesman-Review, the lag time is due to the upgrade to Oracle Cerner EHR — the Genesis of Military Health Systems — which shares a database with the VA.
VA Press Secretary Terrence Hayes confirmed that when the Department of Defense made the changes, it “had the unintended consequence of disrupting services that provide connectivity to the network.”
DoD has gone further in rolling out its version of Oracle Cerner EHR, with facilities in multiple states going online with new patient accounting, medical coding, and patient access and registration capabilities .
ON PROFILE
“Oracle Cerner’s electronic health record program is fraught with flaws – causing problems for healthcare professionals and posing significant risks to patient safety,” Rosendale said in a statement.
“We cannot continue to implement this inadequate system at the expense of billions of dollars in government funding. We must keep VA up to the high standard of care promised to our veterans and be good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”
Andrea Fox is the senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: [email protected]
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS.
