Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester, D-Mont., met with Government Accountability Office (GAO) Comptroller General Gene Dodaro on Jan. 24 to discuss how to improve oversight and accountability at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on several fronts including the agency’s electronic health records program.
In their meeting, Sen. Tester said he highlighted his concerns with current VA management and leadership structures.
“Our veterans deserve a VA system that delivers for them, and a key part of that is ensuring we have the best leaders and employees serving these men and women,” Sen. Tester said in a press release.
“That starts with ensuring accountability and transparency are at the forefront of VA’s mission to provide health care and benefits to veterans, and that the department uses the tools it has to root out misconduct, waste, fraud, and abuse,” he added. “GAO has been a partner in shining a light on areas where VA needs to improve, and I look forward to continue working together to increase oversight at VA.”
The senator said he asked Dodaro about structural changes that the VA could undertake to improve “individual and organizational accountability, management, and catching waste, fraud, or abuse.”
Additionally, Sen. Tester also stressed the importance of keeping a close eye on the VA’s Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program and discussed additional steps to improve veterans’ health care and benefits.
The VA’s EHRM program is in the middle of a “program reset” in order to address performance challenges and improve system reliability before it deploys the EHRM program at other VA sites.
However, the new EHR system is scheduled to go live in March at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center near Chicago – the only healthcare facility to serve both DoD and VA patients.
Sen. Tester, along with his Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee colleagues Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, introduced the EHR Program RESET Act last year, which aims to restructure and enhance the EHRM program, while also mandating frequent reporting to Congress to increase oversight, accountability, and transparency.
According to the press release, the chairman has requested more than 20 reports or reviews by GAO of VA or veterans’ services since 2019.
