A U.S. Department of Defense official told FCW Jan. 18 the agency's Cerner EHR rollout is on schedule, despite recent media reports that the effort had been paused.
Here are five things to know about the EHR rollout.
1. The rollout for the DOD's EHR, called MHS Genesis, kicked off at Fairchild Air Force Base outside Spokane, Wash., in February 2017. Tacoma, Wash.-based Madigan Army Medical Center, which went live on the EHR in October 2017, marked the fourth and final pilot site for the project.
2. On Jan. 16, the Politico Morning eHealth newsletter reported the DOD and Cerner planned to halt the agency's EHR rollout for roughly eight weeks. During the break, officials from the DOD and Cerner would evaluate these four pilot implementations.
3. A spokesperson for the MHS Genesis project reportedly told Politico the pause would allow the rollout to get back on track. Physicians and IT experts familiar with the matter told Politico some clinicians using MHS Genesis cited workflow problems, such as issues with lab report requests.
4. In an emailed statement to Becker's Hospital Review Jan. 16, a Cerner spokesperson said the company is committed to working with the project's partners to "ensure the successful delivery of MHS Genesis."
"Our immediate goal is to work with DOD to make any necessary adjustments before the final deployment decision is made, allowing MHS Genesis to be deployed around the world," the statement reads.
5. However, Stacy Cummings, program executive officer for Defense Healthcare Management Systems, told FCW the DOD's EHR rollout was not paused. She said the agency's EHR timeline — announced in 2017 — had scheduled a period to process user feedback prior to its full deployment phase.