WALLA WALLA, Wash.- The Department of Veteran Affairs is touring medical facilities to inspect the electronic health record system in action. Deputy Secretary Tanya Bradsher has five stops on her radar, including Spokane and Walla Walla completed on Monday.
Following delays following four veterans dying, Bradsher is interested in seeing the program be put to use and find issues hiding under the surface.
After her first two tours, she’s found the system challenging to both veterans and clinic staff. She says the system has been difficult to navigate with response times causing frustration.
Still, Veterans Affairs is planning to address the issues head on and does not plan to change vendors for the electronic health records.
“Right now, our focus is on getting the health care record that we have up and running,” says Deputy Secretary Bradsher We’ll continue to work through that.”
The plans for the system is to go live in March at the Lovell Federal Health Center in Chicago.
Dr. Neil Evans, the Program Executive Director for Electronic Health Record Modernization, says Veterans Affairs and the EHR vendor, Oracle Cerner, are in constant communication, ensuring the system will work properly.
The Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security both plan to use the same operating system,
“At the leadership level, there is a clear commitment,” says Dr. Evans. “A commitment both from our vendor and the VA, and also as you heard with the James A Lovell Federal health care center are joined to go live with the DoD, really within the federal government at getting this right.”
The Deputy Secretary spoke with veterans and staff on her tours, saying the candid conversations are key to ensuring the program gets built properly.
“Our goal as Secretary McDonough said from the start is provide more care for more veterans and more benefits and we need to get the health care record right in order for us to do that,” says Deputy Secretary Bradsher.
