If signed into law, a new discussion draft of legislation to execute oversight of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program would centralize oversight and standardize workflows while modernizing the VA’s systems.
The discussion draft is one of Congress’s potential solutions for addressing significant roadblocks it encountered in its efforts to modernize its EHR system and is spearheaded by Republicans who would establish the Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs as the central figure directly responsible for EHR modernization.
It would further consolidate leadership through the creation of roles for the Under Secretary for Health, Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology, and Program Executive Director – who would be responsible for implementation and operations.
The EHRM program aims to give veterans a seamless transition from receiving care under the Department of Defense (DoD) to receiving care under the VA while using a single fully integrated EHR system.
However, that program has encountered various challenges including underreported costs, poor training, and low employee morale, launching the program into a “program reset” while the VA and its contractor Oracle Cerner focus on improvements at the six sites where the EHR system is currently deployed.
That number is expected to jump to 13 total deployments this year, after the VA said in March that it would roll out the program to an additional nine medical facilities.
As the VA prepares to ramp up its deployment, legislators have been mulling over policy oversight of the program to help smooth out some of the roadblocks it has encountered.
Lawmakers’ discussion draft so far includes standardized reporting requirements across a wide range of domains such as in clinical workflows, quality metrics, and system performance – as well as employee satisfaction and turnover. If written into legislation, it would require quarterly updates to congress on specific data points and contractor accountability metrics.
While current data security clauses exist, the draft would prohibit monetization, sale or misuse of protected information by contractors or subcontractors and requires VA to issue internal guidance and revise contracts to ensure compliance.
Standardized workflows would be established under a national baseline and standards for clinical processes, interfaces, and device connectivity, according to the draft, and would place an emphasis on interoperability beyond that of current read-only exchanges.