An Workplace of Inspector Normal (OIG) report discovered that the VA and Oracle Well being didn’t have ample controls to forestall system modifications within the EHR undertaking from inflicting main incidents, to reply to these incidents uniformly and totally, or to mitigate their impression by offering customary procedures and interoperable downtime tools.
The EHR system skilled lots of of main efficiency incidents affecting the 5 VA medical facilities the place the system was initially deployed.
A efficiency incident is outlined as main when it causes extreme system degradation, results in an outage of providers required for VA’s key operations, or impacts affected person care and requires a response past routine incident administration.
In response to those points, VA halted all deliberate EHR deployments in July 2022, apart from the deployment on the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Well being Care Heart in North Chicago, Illinois, on March 9, 2024. Since then, nonetheless, main efficiency incidents have continued, as lately as March 2024, the report mentioned.
The report additionally mentioned that though main efficiency incidents can delay care to veterans, VA had no formal course of to hyperlink reviews of those delays to particular main efficiency incidents.
Finally, OIG says, the insufficient controls for dealing with main incidents stemmed from the Could 2018 10-year contract with Cerner (now Oracle Well being). In Could 2023, VA modified the contract to strengthen some necessities for addressing main incidents, however might do extra.
The EHR system’s estimated value has grown. It was initially $16 billion. If VA doesn’t enhance controls, main efficiency incidents will proceed, resulting in additional pricey delays in system implementation and posing an ongoing threat to affected person security, the report famous.
The OIG made 9 suggestions, together with real-time knowledge sharing to offer VA larger consciousness of potential issues in system operations, prioritizing main efficiency incident response in a transparent and constant method, creating and implementing response and different efficiency metrics to carry the contractor accountable, requiring adequate element in post-resolution reviews, elevating workers consciousness of procedures and buying applicable backup programs for downtime, and higher figuring out and addressing main efficiency incidents linked to unfavorable affected person outcomes.
