VA acquisition collapses; Congress rushes in (evergreen)

FedNewsNetwork covers sweeping EHR reform legislation from House and Senate VA committees that would end VHA’s medical-records transition “within two years, unless the department certifies facilities using the Oracle-Cerner EHR have recovered, and that health care quality data shows steady improvement since the system went live at each facility.” Legislation also blocks the rollout of the new EHR to new sites until facilities currently running Oracle-Cerner are seeing “normal operational levels.”

The EHR transition to a so-called “commercial” solution and VA’s separate failed supply chain modernization effort have shared an implementation contractor: McLean’s Booz Allen Hamilton. Booz was originally awarded VA EHR modernization under a T4NG task order valued at nearly $750 million; its follow-on cleared a protest centered around conflicts of interest and landed back in McLean January 2023 with a value of $860 million. VA abandoned Booz’s $92 million VALOR effort to adopt DOD’s DMLSS supply chain and has started over from scratch, potentially using an Oracle ERP.

Meanwhile, the VA legislation also grants increased pay flexibility for up to 300 critical healthcare personnel. However, the VA must cut 10,000 healthcare positions, pending a substantial budget increase in 2025, to address PACT Act implementation.

Senate VA Committee Chair John Tester (D-MT) called his EHR-curbing legislation a “common-sense step” toward delivering veterans and their families “the support they earned and deserve.”