The House of Representatives’ committees on Veterans’ Affairs and Appropriations and its counterparts in the Senate would have the authority to oversee the Department of Veterans Affairs’ electronic health record modernization program and its planned rollouts of the Oracle Health EHR system.
Provisions in the draft oversight plan would improve the program’s sustainability and better ensure successful system deployments with defined leadership roles, rules to secure personal data and more, according to supporters at the hearing.
In March, the VA announced plans to deploy its Oracle EHR to 13 medical facilities next year.
Released during a House Veterans’ Affairs Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing last week, the plan aims to fix problems of the program’s sordid past, including massive cost overruns, lack of training at facilities where the system is implemented and incidents of patient safety.
Proposals would establish baseline workflows and a process to monitor and control variations from them. The agency would also be required to submit a Congressional report within 90 days of establishing the baseline.
“This provision mandates that VA conduct a full inventory of clinical workflows, compare them to best practices, and set a national baseline,” Cole Lyle, director of the Veterans Affairs and rehabilitation division at the American Legion, said in his written testimony filed June 11 and available on the House Committee Repository’s hearing webpage.
“Why is this important? Because inconsistent workflows across sites have caused breakdowns in communication, training gaps and patient safety concerns,” he said. “Establishing a unified clinical standard ensures every veteran receives the same high-quality care, no matter where they go in the VA system.”
Lawmakers also proposed to establish standard quality metrics to evaluate care delivered during the adoption of the Oracle EHR at a VA medical facility and submit a report within 90 days of establishing those metrics.
Also, 90 days before a facility is to go live on Oracle Health, the VA Secretary would be required to submit an additional report prepared by the director of the VA medical facility, its chief of staff and the director of the Veterans Integrated Service Network detailing resources provided for implementation. That report would address the level of funding, training, additional staff, technical support, support contracts, mitigation strategies and other necessary resources the facility needed and received in preparation for EHR rollout.
The draft legislation also includes a provision requiring the VA Secretary to ensure “that each covered contract prohibits covered information from being monetized, sold or otherwise misused” within one year of the act passing.
Of note, the draft suggested an internal governance structure for EHR modernization with duties divided among the deputy VA secretary, the under secretary for health and the assistant secretary for information and technology.
Cherri Waters, acting deputy chief information officer, product delivery service and executive director of the department’s health services portfolio, said in her written testimony that the VA supported the intent of the governance proposals, but would like to work on some technical concerns.
Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
Source link
