The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will make a final decision on whether to ditch its in-house electronic health record (EHR) system for a commercial product by June, according to VA Secretary David Shulkin.
According to Nextgov, he felt this move should’ve handled earlier.
“From my perspective, I wish this decision had been made by a prior secretary,” said Shulkin. “It’s been kicked down the road. If I could back up time, I believe it’s a mistake to not have made a decision with [the Defense Department] at the time. I’m not saying who made the mistake.”
IT officials had previously told Congress it was leaning towards abandoning its Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) after $564 million had gone to efforts to merge the system with the Department of Defense’s own records, only for the DoD to enter into a ten-year contract with Cerner in 2015.
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John joined TriMed in 2016, focusing on healthcare policy and regulation. After graduating from Columbia College Chicago, he worked at FM News Chicago and Rivet News Radio, and worked on the state government and politics beat for the Illinois Radio Network. Outside of work, you may find him adding to his never-ending graphic novel collection.