WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs is moving away from their longtime electronic health records system, looking to a commercial EHR technology more along the lines of those being utilized by the Dept. of Defense and the Military Health System (MHS).
VA Secretary David Shulkin announced on Monday that the federal agency would be abandoning its current system, VistA EHR, after decades of work and development.
“I said recently to Congress that I was committed to getting VA out of the software business, that I didn’t see remaining in that business as benefitting Veterans,” he stated. “And, because of that, we’re making a decision to move towards a commercial off-the-shelf product.”
“For these reasons, I have decided that VA will adopt the same EHR system as DoD, now known as MHS GENESIS, which at its core consists of Cerner Millennium.”
Why do you care?
The contract for the VA’s next generation EHR system has been awarded to Cerner, a company based in Kansas City.
The company had already been working on the DoD’s current system, MHS Genesis, which carried a price tag of $4.3 billion. It was their work there that Secretary Shulkin said pushed their decision into Cerner’s favor. There was no “full and open competition” for the contract, to which Shulkin said there was a “public interest exception” that allows them to award the contract to Cerner.
What will it do?
The implementation of the new system will “ultimately result in all patient data residing in one common system”, according to the secretary. In effect, it would effectively allow for easy transfer of data among the nation’s military Carew facilities and health care providers where both former and current service members receive treatment and care.
When will it take effect?
The announcement did not include any timeline for implementation, nor did it include the value of the contract.
Cerner spokesman Dan Smith released the following statement Monday morning.
Earlier today, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced its decision to modernize its existing health records platform by choosing Cerner’s commercial off-the-shelf Millennium EHR solution.
We are honored and humbled to be selected to lead the VA’s important project. We believe this project, in concert with ongoing progress towards implementing the Department of Defense’s MHS Genesis system, will lead to ongoing innovation, improved interoperability and the creation of a single longitudinal health record that can facilitate the efficient exchange of data among military care facilities and the thousands of civilian health care providers where current and former service members receive health care.
We look forward to sharing more information as we build the team of innovative and experienced partners that will join us to complete this vital work.
You can read the Secretary of Veterans Affairs’ remarks here.
Benjamin Peters was a reporter for The Missouri Times and Missouri Times Magazine and also produced the #MoLeg Podcast. He joined The Missouri Times in 2016 after working as a sports editor and TV news producer in mid-Missouri. Benjamin is a graduate of Missouri State University in Springfield.
