Health IT

Three takeaways on the VA, VistA and government health IT

A report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office and a December 12 EHR interoperability summit provide a bit of insight on the VA, VistA and health IT at the federal level.

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A new study from the U.S. Government Accountability Office dug deeper into what’s happening with the Department of Veterans Affairs and its quest to improve its health IT infrastructure. Meanwhile, an EHR interoperability summit involving top government officials has been the talk of the town.

Here are three takeaways regarding the report and the meeting.

Modernization costs

According to the GAO, the VA has attempted to update its EHR system — the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (or VistA— numerous times over the past 20 years. These attempts include the iEHR program and the VistA Evolution program.

While the iEHR program set out to replace the separate systems used by the VA and the Department of Defense with a single system, the VistA Evolution program wanted to improve VistA with new capabilities and a different user interface.

From fiscal year 2011 to fiscal year 2016, the VA contracted with 138 vendors and dedicated more than $1.1 billion to these two programs. The 15 main contractors that worked on the efforts cost the VA $741 million.

Only recently did the department announce that it will switch to a Cerner EHR system instead of modernizing its legacy system.

FITARA-related efforts

The GAO report also touches on the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act, otherwise known as FITARA. Enacted by Congress in late 2014, it focuses on how the government purchases and managed technology.

The VA has worked toward consolidating its data centers and reported $23.61 million in data center-related cost savings. But the progress isn’t quite enough, as it “has fallen short of targets set by the Office of Management and Budget.” On top of that, the VA doesn’t anticipate more savings regarding data centers.

More on federal health IT

In other health IT news, a December 12 summit between a number of top officials has garnered the attention of the healthcare world.

Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and the leader of the Office of American Innovation, will lead the event along with CMS Administrator Seema Verma. The meeting will focus on EHR interoperability, according to Politico.

A few other prominent folks will be there, including National Coordinator for Health IT Don Rucker, Intermountain Healthcare CEO Marc Harrison and CMO Officer Stan Huff, a representative from Cerner and The Sequoia Project CEO Mariann Yeager.

As Politico also pointed out, the summit does have ties to the goings-on of the VA. Earlier this year, Kushner boasted about how quickly the VA secured the Cerner deal.

According to leaked audio, Kushner claimed that with his assistance, the department was able to sort out a solution in a two-week time frame.

Photo: Pixtum, Getty Images

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