U.S. Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., is pushing back against legislation proposed by U.S. Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., that would scrap the VA's $20 billion Oracle Cerner EHR rollout, FCW reported Feb. 6.
Mr. Takano said he did not agree with proposed legislation titled "To Terminate the EHR Modernization Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs," which aims to pull the plug on the EHR roll out.
"We were able to pass bipartisan IT reform and EHRM cost accountability last Congress. To that end, I don't agree with completely canceling the EHR program without a viable solution to replace it," Mr. Takano said in an emailed statement to FCW. "Canceling a contract is not going to fix the larger issue of VA's lack of progress with IT modernization and poor program management stemming from the sole-source award by the Trump administration in 2018. I want to get this right, America's veterans and VA staff deserve a modern EHR that works."
The EHR rollout, which has been ongoing since October 2020, has been plagued by outages, delays and problems, once in which an auditor found that the EHR system was responsible for the harm of 148 veterans.