Lawmakers Plan to Pull the Plug on Oracle Cerner’s VA Contract

Lawmakers Plan to Pull the Plug on Oracle Cerner’s VA Contract unless major improvements are made to remedy technical flaws, prominent Republican lawmakers are prepared to pull the plug on a troubled health IT project by Oracle Cerner being implemented at Veterans Affairs (VA) hospitals.

Veterans Affairs House Committee Chairman introduced the VA Electronic Health Record Modernization Improvement Act previously. The act would require major upgrades to the EHR system by the VA and Oracle Cerner before it could be implemented in more medical facilities.

According to a summary report about the bill, the chief of staff, director, and network executives of each VA medical center would be responsible for certifying that the EHR system is correctly configured for the premises. They also have to ensure that the necessary resources are in place to support it and that it will not have an adverse effect on safety, reliability, or existing wait times.

In addition, Congressman Matt Rosendale presented new legislation on Friday that would cancel the VA’s billion-dollar EHR modernization program if the required changes are not made.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is investing $16 billion to upgrade its electronic medical information system in collaboration with Cerner, a health technology firm now acquired by Oracle. Federal politicians are increasingly worried that the clinical data system poses a threat to patient safety.

The VA has delayed the launch of its new electronic health record system to additional medical centers until June 2023 so that it may fix the software’s reliability issues at existing locations. According to reports from watchdog organizations, about 150 incidents of patient injury were reported at a Spokane VA hospital after the implementation of the new EHR system.

“I have traveled across the country and seen and heard firsthand the impact the Oracle Cerner product has had on VA providers and veterans. It has crippled the delivery of care, put veteran patient safety at risk, and stressed an already overwhelmed healthcare system,” claimed Bost in a statement.

Until the VA administration verifies that the EHR system has established 99.9 percent uptime and operational fixes have been implemented, the measure would prevent the VA and Oracle Cerner from beginning go-live preparations at more medical locations.

In May 2018, the VA inked a $10 billion contract with health tech firm Cerner to switch from the VA’s in-house developed VistA platform to a commercially available electronic health records system. Cerner’s MHS Genesis system is already being used by the Department of Defense, so this move was made to bring the country’s largest health system in line with its practices.

Oracle acquired Cerner for roughly $30 billion in June of last year. As part of the acquisition, Oracle took over Cerner’s troubled VA technology project.

According to Rosendale, the implementation of the Oracle Cerner EHR system at five of the VA’s 171 medical health centers has severely disrupted processes for veterans and VA suppliers, with the VA spending approximately $5 of taxpayer money on the project.

A recent user study conducted by KLAS Research indicates that nearly 80% of Oracle Cerner EHR users at the VA disapprove of the system’s ability to help them provide high-quality treatment.

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