VA Kicks Off Cerner EHR Rollout in Washington State
Following multiple delays due to the pandemic and otherwise, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) this weekend began rolling out an initial set of electronic health record (EHR) capabilities to its first site, the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Wash, as reported by Federal News Network.
The development is a key step of the VA’s initiative to replace the department’s 40-year-old legacy EHR system, the Veterans Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA), by adopting the same platform as the DOD, a Cerner EHR system. The contract between the VA and Cerner, signed in May 2018, started with a $10 billion price tag, but recent estimates have pushed that up to over $16 billion.
Both the VA’s modernized health records platform, as well as the DOD’s new EHR system, MHS Genesis, have had their rollouts delayed due to the pandemic. The implementation of the MHS Genesis platform began at DOD sites in 2017. Mann-Grandstaff was scheduled to be the first Veterans Health Administration (VHA) medical center to implement the new EHR system with an initial go-live date of March 28, 2020.
On February 10, the facility’s go-live date was first postponed due to development and training issues, and then was pushed back again a few months later due to the health crisis as Cerner and other contractors postponed travel.
Laura Kroupa, chief medical officer for VA’s Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization, recently pointed out during Cerner’s 2020 virtual summit that the delays actually helped VA improve the technology. “We worked on interfaces. We worked on improving our training posture,” Kroupa said, as reported by Federal News Network. Nonetheless, the department won’t launch with a full suite of capabilities all at once, instead planning on deploying a second of two capability sets in Spokane next spring, the outlet reported.
“This is the first full implementation of the EHR and a significant milestone for VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) effort, as the department works to transform and improve how VA delivers care to veterans,” spokeswoman Christina Noel said in an email to Federal News Network.
Providing an update on Oct. 26, Cerner officials stated that “this is the first time in history three federal departments are using the same EHR — a historic milestone toward improving the secure and seamless exchange of health information across the federal government.”
VA now joins the DOD and the Department of Homeland Security, via the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), in “the successful deployment of Cerner-powered technology that will create a single health record for 18 million service members, veterans plus their family members.” Officials added that in addition to the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center, the EHR was implemented at its four community-based outpatient clinics across Washington, Montana and Idaho, as well as the West Consolidated Patient Account Center, a VA business operations facility in Las Vegas.
It's expected that VA will next deploy the EHR at its medical center in Walla Walla, Wash., followed by facilities in White City and Roseburg, Ore., respectively. However, a congressional aide told Federal News Network that the infrastructure needed to support the new Cerner solution is “much worse” than in Spokane. Even when those are done, the aide said the project is still quite “far off” until a go-live happens successfully at a large complex medical center such as Seattle or Portland.
In April, two reports from the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) highlighted some potential patient safety risks from the transition to the new EHR system at Mann-Grandstaff, as well as some deficiencies in infrastructure readiness for deploying the new system.
VA recently stated to Congress that it is still on track to complete EHR modernization in 2028, and its overall budget projections haven’t evolved after the two delays, Federal News Network reported.
