Officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) said VA will pause the deployment of its new electronic health record (EHR) system to a second site in Columbus, Ohio until it has concluded and shared the results of a strategic assessment of the EHR program with Congress, Federal News Network reported Wednesday.
“The strategic review covers a full range of program areas, including productivity and clinical workflow optimization, a human-centered design effort to understand what veterans want to see from VA’s patient portal and a sandbox environment that will allow employees at future implementation sites to conduct interdisciplinary, team-based rehearsals of these workflows in the new EHR solution,” Carolyn Clancy, VA’s acting deputy secretary, told lawmakers during a House Veterans Affairs Technology Modernization subcommittee hearing Wednesday.
Clancy said the department has a new senior information technology adviser and chief acquisition officer who are currently assessing the requirements of the EHR program and are reporting to VA Secretary Denis McDonough.
In March 2021, McDonough announced a 12-week strategic review of VA’s EHR modernization effort to address issues with Cerner’s Millennium EHR system, which was first deployed at the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington.
