Members of Congress are praising the Department of Veterans Affairs' decision to halt its rollout of the Oracle Cerner EHR system at additional facilities until it can address problems with the system at facilities already using it, FedScoop reported April 21.
Members such as Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., chair of the House VA committee; Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., head of the House Veterans Affairs technology modernization subcommittee; Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., chair of the Senate VA committee; and Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., ranking member of VA's House committee, all released statements of approval for the halt.
"I'm pleased that the Secretary is ensuring that no future 'go lives' will occur at any new facilities until these issues are addressed," Mr. Takano said. "This program needs accountability and they must restore the current five sites to normal operating capacity before we even consider future deployments."
This comes as the VA looks to negotiate a new contract with Oracle, Cerner's parent company.
The VA is deciding if it wants to continue a $10 billion IT contract it signed with the company back in 2018 to modernize its EHR system.
Currently, the Cerner EHR system is only live at five VA facilities, but it has been plagued with outages and delays since its rollout began in October 2020.
The halt was made to fix the current errors within the system and get them to a highly functional operating level before deploying the system at more facilities.