KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The Department of Veterans Affairs announced Friday it is halting the rollout of its Electronic Health Record program.
The EHR program is part of a $16 billion contract from 2018 between the VA and then-North Kansas City-based Cerner Corporation. Since then, Cerner, which still maintains a large base of employees in the Kansas City area, was acquired by Oracle.
While Friday’s announcement halts the rollout of the EHR program, the VA and Oracle Center say they remain committed to improvements and hope to eventually resume the rollout.
“We’ve heard from Veterans and VA clinicians that the new electronic health record is not meeting expectations, and we’re holding Oracle Cerner and ourselves accountable to get this right,” VA Secretary Denis McDonough said in Friday’s announcement.
The rollout of the program has been the focus of review by federal lawmakers, including Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), who introduced legislation in March that called for stopping the further rollout of the program until fixes could be made.
“Pausing the rollout of the EHR system until it can be overhauled is the right decision for our Veterans,” Moran said in a statement Friday morning. “The parameters outlined in my legislation — and set by the VA — must be met before the rollout of the system continues.”
Moran said a failure to make changes would make the continued implementation of the system “irresponsible.”
The EHR program has already rolled out to five VA health care systems across the country. Friday’s pause does not affect the rollout of the system to the Captain James A. Level Federal Health Care Center in Chicago, where the system remains set for deployment in March 2024.
None of the VA health care systems in the Kansas City area have yet to implement the EHR system.
Oracle Global Industries executive Vice President Mike Sicilia said the company plans to “continue to closely coordinate with VA” on making improvements to the EHR.
“Oracle is proud to continue working together with VA to modernize its Electronic Health Record system,” Sicilia said in a statement provided to KSHB 41. “We support VA’s plan to improve the operation of the EHR at the current sites and take the necessary time to institute governance, change management and standardization changes to ensure the success of future VA deployment, similar to what (the Department of Defense) did a few years ago.”
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