The acting CIO Scott Blackburn resigned last week and Secretary David Shulkin was fired by the President in March, 2018. According to the agency officials, the new leadership is “now firmly aligned” with the short-term priorities of the President, including Electronic Health Record modernization.
VA press secretary Curt Cashour , in a written statement said, “In a number of cases, employees who were wedded to the status quo and not on board with this administration’s policies or pace of change have now departed VA, under Acting Secretary Wilkie’s leadership, senior VA officials are now on the same page, speaking with one voice to veterans, employees and outside stakeholders, such as Congress and veterans service organizations, and are focused on a number of key priorities in the short term.”
One thing that Cashour didn’t mention was whether, Veteran Affairs’ decision on the modernization would follow the decision made by Shulkin in June 2017 to completely replace legacy Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture with Cerner’s off the shelf commercial system, or to stick with decade old VistA and upgrade it.
The VA has been in $10 billion EHR modernization contract negotiations with Cerner, which has not been signed yet. Shulkin’s firing has effectively left the deal in awkward situation. Shulkin told VA to create a single common EHR system with DoD, which would use a shared Cerner Millennium EHR platform. The agency also announced its plan to align implementation and deployment with Department of Defense’s own Cerner System, which has already been installed in the Pacific Northwest at four military sites.
Some people are still questioning the VA’s decision to adopt a Cerner system, one DoD officials are confident that the agency is definitely going to sign a deal with the top EHR vendor. An executive program officer for Defense Healthcare Management Systems, Stacy Cummings, on Thursday testifying before a Senate appropriations subcommittee, said that her agency has “regular engagement” with the Veteran Affairs to discuss finalize strategies for Cerner acquisition.
“We meet regularly, we share lessons learned, we talk about the technology implications,” said Cummings, who also said that despite the changings in VA’s leadership, VA-DoD meetings never stopped, and from her perspective VA’s “still moving the ball forward.”
Cashour’s announcement on Wednesday indicated that VA has also been working very closely with the White House to nominate Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson as agency’s next secretary. But Jackson withdrew his nomination after a senate committee delayed his confirmation hearing, to investigate the allegations of management issues and improper behavior.
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