Although the Department of Defense was set to go live on its EHR in December, the timeline has been pushed back to 2017, according to MedCity News.
The EHR, named MHS GENESIS, was developed by Cerner, Leidos and Accenture. The DoD awarded the companies the $4.3 billion contract in July 2015.
A press release from the DoD said the new timeline for the rollout will be announced in the next 30 days. The delay will be "a few months," meaning the EHR won't go live at its first site — Naval Hospital Bremerton (Wash.) — until 2017.
"We have a responsibility to our customers to ensure that all required test procedures and processes are completed in an orderly manner. During the testing of the system, we identified the need for more time before initial deployment to ensure we are providing the best possible user experience to our beneficiaries and healthcare providers," Stacy Cummings, the executive officer for the Defense Healthcare Management Systems, said in a statement.
The press release also said that the modification was "driven by the aggressive schedule and issues identified during testing that led to the determination that more time is needed to correct these issues."
The delay follows a May 2016 audit from the DoD's Office of Inspector General, which found the initial go-live timeline was unrealistic.