In a month of many setbacks for the Department of Veterans Affairs’ effort to implement a new health record system, the agency bumped back the go-live date for the sprawling project. The VA originally planned to flip the switch for its first site in Spokane, Washington on March 28. Now, the agency is bumping back that date to July, with Seattle and Tacoma set to go live in October.
“That is my goal,” VA Secretary Robert Wilkie told the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs on Thursday, when asked if the system would go live in July. “I’m confident that we will be (ready). I’m also confident that Seattle will be online later in the year.”
The agency is working with private sector partner Cerner Corp. to replace its legacy VistA health record system, which the VA had developed internally. Cerner was awarded the contract in part because of its current work with the Department of Defense, with hopes of creating a health record system that would be continuous across the two agencies.
The rollout was delayed because the development work is not yet finished; roughly 19 of the 73 interfaces are not ready. The VA will use the additional time to train staff and add new programs that were not yet ready to launch.
“We weren’t ready to train on a system that was not 100% ready for those who are using it,” Wilkie said. “I was not going to have thousands and thousands of practitioners practice on a system that was not ready.”
The VA is also seeking a sharp increase in the amount of funding allocated to the project next year. For its 2021 budget, the VA is seeking a total of $2.6 billion for the EHR project, a $1.2 billion increase from its budget for 2020. It’s part of the VA’s proposed $243 billion budget for next year that the agency released on Feb. 10.
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“The budget request will ensure Veterans and their families experience health improvements and technological modernization advancements,” Wilkie said in a news release.
Several other snags this month led Congress to push for more oversight of the project. In early February, Wilkie fired James Byrne, the deputy secretary heading up its EHR modernization efforts, with Wilkie attributing the sudden change to a “loss of confidence in Mr. Byrne’s ability to carry out his duties.”
A bill that would require the VA to be transparent about the status of the project is currently going through the Senate. The inspectors general for the DOD and the VA also announced they would begin a joint audit to assess both agencies’ progress in achieving interoperability between the two health record systems.
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