\u00a0fiscal 2027 budget request<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 an increase of about $800 million.<\/p>\nSen. John Boozman (R-Ark.) asked Collins if the VA\u2019s FY 2027 budget request provides \u201csufficient funding to further accelerate the program\u2019s rollout without sacrificing quality.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to help you,\u201d Boozman said.<\/p>\n
]]><\/p>\n
\u201cWe need this fully funded going forward,\u201d Collins replied. \u201cThere\u2019s no going back on the ERHM. We\u2019re beyond that point, so it\u2019s got to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018The exact same problems\u2019<\/p>\n
Groups representing VA employees, however, say the latest facilities to adopt the new EHR are dealing with many of the same problems as before.<\/p>\n
Jacob Pannell, a former VA behavioral health provider in the Pacific Northwest, now a business representative for the National Federation of Federal Employees, told Democrats on the Senate VA Committee at a roundtable hearing Tuesday that he saw firsthand the \u201cday one\u201d rollout of the Oracle-Cerner EHR at VA sites in Spokane and Walla Walla, Washington \u2014 and that many of the same problems persist.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were the first ones to go live, and I will just say this: The reports that are coming in still from the new facilities are the exact same problems that we reported in 2020, 2021 and 2022,\u201d Pannell said. \u201cEvery single problem. It still takes twice as long for our providers and nursing staff \u2014 even down to our [medical support assistants] and schedulers that are just getting [veterans] in the door \u2014 it takes twice as long to go through the system.\u201d<\/p>\n
Full health record interoperability between VA and DoD has been the ultimate goal of this project since the VA signed its contract with Cerner in 2018.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt integrates \u2014 I can see some things from DoD, like it was designed to do \u2014 but I will tell you this: it\u2019s not worth the risk, it\u2019s not worth the damage that\u2019s been done,\u201d Pannell said.<\/p>\n
Under the Biden and first Trump administrations, government watchdogs flagged several problems with the new EHR.<\/p>\n
In some cases, the new EHR did not successfully transfer prescription orders to VA\u2019s pharmacy operations as well as flags in veterans\u2019 medical files indicating that they were at an elevated risk of suicide. Pannell told lawmakers that all these things are still \u201cyet to be fully resolved.\u201d As a veteran enrolled in VA care, Pannell said VA medical facilities in Maryland that still use the department\u2019s legacy EHR system don\u2019t have full visibility into his medical records from when he was a patient at facilities in Washington State using the new EHR.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t even figure out where I need to go to refill my medications, so if I have that problem, somebody who\u2019s pretty good with technology, I know our Vietnam veterans and some of our older veterans, they cannot navigate that system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Julie McLendon, legislative committee co-chairwoman of the Nurses Organization of Veterans Affairs, said the VA facilities that have switched over to the Oracle-Cerner EHR are experiencing problems migrating inter-facility consults, referrals and orders. She said that the newest sites deploying the new EHR don\u2019t have the same level of support staff that the VA provided during earlier go-lives.<\/p>\n
VA facilities reduce appointment availability and see a temporary drop in productivity as they switch over to the new EHR, but those metrics are expected to return to normal once clinicians become more familiar with the new system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have additional support with additional staff that had been provided during the initial rollout five years ago,\u201d McLendon said. \u201cAs we learn it, we don\u2019t have other staff available to see patients, so we are anticipating a chance of extending access and wait times,\u201d McLendon said.<\/p>\n
At Wednesday\u2019s hearing, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told Collins that the VA, as part of its budget request for next year, continues to improve the new EHR\u2019s functionality at some of the earliest go-live sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can\u2019t ignore the fact that those original sites are still seeing problems, and you need to be aware of that,\u201d Murray said.<\/p>\n
Collins said one of the key issues with previous go-lives was that the VA allowed too much customization in how local facilities implemented the new EHR. The department, he added, has now standardized the EHR deployment process.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was bad, and you had six facilities that were allowed to act as if they were independent, not connected, and do whatever they wanted to do, and you had some system software problems. We\u2019ve not had that. We fixed that issue moving forward, and we\u2019re going to go back and fix those as well,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n
Murray, who serves as the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, expressed optimism about the future of the EHR project, even as she pressed the VA to address issues at earlier sites.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited that you\u2019re moving out and not hearing complaints. That\u2019s great, but we still have problems at the original sites,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat is what drives me every day \u2014 to make sure we get it right this time,\u201d Collins replied.<\/p>\n
If you would like to contact this reporter about recent changes in the federal government, please email\u00a0<\/strong>jheckman@federalnewsnetwork.com<\/strong><\/a>, or reach out on Signal at jheckman.29<\/strong><\/p>\nCopyright
\n \u00a9\u00a02026 Federal News Network. All rights reserved. This website is not intended for users located within the European Economic Area.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department of Veterans Affairs is getting bipartisan praise for its resumed rollout of a new Electronic Health…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":48411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[35],"tags":[37058,15995,68295,210,1141,1142,336436,4410,336437,325849,336438,27130,36363,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-817558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-department-of-veterans-affairs","tag-doug-collins","tag-gary-peters","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare","tag-jacob-pannell","tag-john-boozman","tag-julie-mclendon","tag-national-federation-of-federal-employees","tag-nurses-organization-of-veterans-affairs","tag-patty-murray","tag-richard-blumenthal","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116625848921278967","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=817558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/817558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=817558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=817558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=817558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}