VA and Oracle Cerner Reach Agreement on Electronic Health Record Contract Extension

In a statement on Tuesday, the VA said the renegotiated contract “dramatically increases” the agency’s ability to holdOracle Cerneraccountable across areas including reliability, responsiveness and interoperability.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) expanded its existing partnership with Verizon in a $448.3 million, nine-year extension to supply VA medical centers and healthcare facilities with mobile devices including communications during the VA’s disaster recovery missions and other emergencies.

Newly proposed standards and requirements would better ensure access to care, accountability, and transparency for Medicaid or CHIP services, including home and community-based services

In the latest setback for the initiative, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced that all deployments in its EHR Modernization effort will be halted while it prioritizes improvements at the five sites that currently use the new EHR, as part of a larger program reset.

The integration hinges on generative AI-powered tools, according to the announcement, to increase productivity and enhance patient care. One of the integration’s tools, which helps automatically draft message responses, is being implemented at UC San Diego Health, UW Health and Stanford Health Care, according to the companies.

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ latest pause in the rollout of its new Electronic Health Record will last longer than expected.

Laura Ruzick, director of Veterans Integrated Services Network 10 — which covers parts of Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana — told staff in a memo that recent assessments show the Oracle-Cerner EHR “is not yet ready for the planned June deployment in Saginaw.”

Called the EHR Program RESET Act, the bill would require the VA and the EHR’s developer Oracle Cerner to fix underlying issues with the technology identified in a sprint report published last month. The bill would also compel the department not to implement the technology at any additional health facilities until data shows that it is surpassing the performance of the VA’s VistA legacy...

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced the Ensuring Patient Access to Critical Breakthrough Products Act. The legislation aims to close a gap between Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance of a breakthrough medical device and when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) covers it for Medicare. 

The Biden administration is exploring requiring new certifications for provider electronic health records to help facilitate electronic prior authorization, a major source of administrative burden, officials said. 

This is the largest budget proposal in U.S. history for Veterans, their families, caregivers and survivors. The total FY 2024 request for VA is $325.1 billion, a $16.6 billion (+5.4%) increase above the FY 2023 budget enacted level.