{"id":642218,"date":"2023-04-27T20:06:14","date_gmt":"2023-04-28T01:06:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/27\/house-offers-new-bipartisan-it-modernization-bill-as-va-halts-ehrm-rollout\/"},"modified":"2023-04-27T20:06:14","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T01:06:14","slug":"house-offers-new-bipartisan-it-modernization-bill-as-va-halts-ehrm-rollout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/27\/house-offers-new-bipartisan-it-modernization-bill-as-va-halts-ehrm-rollout\/","title":{"rendered":"House offers new bipartisan IT modernization bill as VA halts EHRM rollout"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Monday, Rep. Mike Takano, D-Calif., ranking member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and the committee’s Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., introduced companion legislation to the EHR Program RESET Act of 2023<\/a> that had been offered by Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, on March 30.<\/p>\n

They have introduced H.R. 2809 \u2013 which follows a series of related House bills to curtail or terminate the VA’s beleaguered electronic health records modernization effort in partnership with Oracle Cerner \u2013 to begin negotiations between the Congressional chambers to address the management and delivery of the EHRM program.<\/p>\n

“This bill will provide a framework for fixing the EHRM program and ensuring that VA fixes problems where the new health records system is in use before any new deployments,” Takano said of the “troubled IT program” in the committee’s announcement about the legislative action.<\/p>\n

The new legislation includes the bill language for Takano’s H.R. 1659, Department of Veterans Affairs IT Modernization Improvement Act of 2023, requiring the VA to contract for independent verification and validation for the EHRM and other modernization programs, and Bost’s H.R. 592, Department of Veterans Affairs Electronic Health Record Modernization Improvement Act.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the VA announced on Friday that it has halted the rollout to focus on optimizing the EHR at the sites where it is currently in use: Spokane VA Health Care System, VA Walla Walla Health Care, Roseburg VA Health Care System, VA Southern Oregon Health Care and VA Central Ohio Health Care System.<\/p>\n

“Additional deployments will not be scheduled until VA is confident that the new EHR is highly functioning at current sites and ready to deliver for Veterans and VA clinicians at future sites,” according to the agency’s statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This readiness will be demonstrated by clear improvements in the clinician and veteran experience; sustained high performance and high reliability of the system itself; improved levels of productivity at the sites where the EHR is in use and more. When these criteria have been met and the reset period concludes, VA will release a new deployment schedule and re-start deployment activities.”<\/p>\n

One exception “to the full-stop on deployment activities” is at the only fully integrated VA and Department of Defense health system \u2013 the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Chicago \u2013 where the new EHR is scheduled to go-live in March 2024.<\/p>\n

Deployment at this facility will continue as planned in partnership with DoD and the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization Office, according to the VA’s announcement.<\/p>\n

Takano and Bost’s new bipartisan bill requires the VA and Oracle Cerner to meet or exceed performance baselines as determined by the Office of Information and Technology and the Veterans Health Administration for the five sites within 180 days after enactment of the legislation \u2013 or terminate their contract and come up with an alternative plan.<\/p>\n

The bill, if passed, would also:<\/p>\n