The Department of Veterans Affairs' contract with Cerner has been put on pause until the completion of an independent assessment addressing the agency's interoperability requirements of the EHR concludes, VA Secretary David Shulkin, MD, said Wednesday.
In prepared testimony for a Senate Committee hearing, Dr. Shulkin said the pause — which began in December — was for "strategic" purposes so that VA could "conduct an additional and external assessment of national interoperability language contained in the Request for Proposal that would ultimately support an EHR contract award."
The agency enlisted MITRE, a nonprofit company that oversees federally funded research, to review the contract and a final report is due to Dr. Shulkin at the end of the month.
"I want to make sure that when we sign a contract that will go into place for years and years to come, that we've done everything that we can to make sure that veterans have interoperable records," Dr. Shulkin told reporters Wednesday afternoon, according to Federal News Radio. "When I'm assured that we can get this to the very best place we can, then I'll feel more comfortable proceeding. It's a cautious pause. It shouldn't be over-interpreted. I'm not satisfied that we have everything that we need so that I know that we've done the best job that we can."
If the VA doesn't finalize its contract this month, Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., the No. 2 Republican on the committee, warns the program faces serious risk of derailment, as well as the savings and efficiencies associated with a timely launch, according to FedScoop.
"[F]urther delay disrupts your implementation plan that requires 900 Cerner IP engineers to support the VA's deployment of the system in the Pacific Northwest," reads his letter addressed to Dr. Shulkin. "Unless you finalize the contract this month, there will be a considerable shift within Cerner to reassign there 900 IP engineers to other projects, which will be difficult to reset or recommit to this contract in the future."