VA professional association asks Congress ‘to pause further deployments’ of new EHR – Nextgov/FCW

VA professional association asks Congress ‘to pause further deployments’ of new EHR  Nextgov/FCW

The National Association of Veteran Affairs Physicians and Dentists sent a letter to top lawmakers that asked them to only allow new EHR deployments to … A leading association representing physicians and dentists across the Department of Veterans Affairs’ network of almost 170 medical facilities is calling on lawmakers to halt additional rollouts of the agency’s new Oracle Health electronic health record system until independent evaluations of the software can be conducted. In an Oct. 12-dated letter, the National Association of Veteran Affairs Physicians and Dentists asked Congress “to pause further deployments of the Oracle electronic health record (EHR) while protecting funding for patient care and safety at the sites already converted, and to allow deployments to resume only when VA has demonstrated that the system can support safe, reliable care.” The request from the professional association — which says it represents the interests of approximately 20,000 physicians and dentists — was sent to the chairs and ranking members of the House and the Senate Veterans’ Affairs, Appropriations, Oversight and Government Reform and Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs panels.

Nineteen VA medical sites now use the new EHR system, with the agency completing its most recent go-lives at two facilities in Ohio and Alaska on Saturday. The modernization project is part of a broader federal push to deploy a single