EHR modernization and community care integration top committee questions as VA seeks faster, standardized systems
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Summary
Lawmakers pressed VA officials on the electronic health record modernization program and community care integration, asking how the department will accelerate implementation, improve interoperability with community providers and hold contractors accountable.
Members of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee pressed Secretary Doug Collins on how the Veterans Health Administration will accelerate and standardize its electronic health record modernization (EHRM) rollout and resolve long-standing interoperability gaps with community care providers.
Collins described the EHRM program as a “restart” and said his team had simplified governance to speed deployment; he said VA will standardize clinical configurations and push Oracle (the vendor) and VA clinicians to resolve differences more directly so more rollout sites can come online in the near term. Collins said the department has identified roughly 10% of VA workflows that are unique and that standardization would reduce committee layers that previously slowed decisions.
Lawmakers said long delays in sharing records between VA and community providers hamper patient care and slow community-care scheduling. Collins acknowledged extensive problems: he described a lack of two-way electronic communication with outside clinicians and gave examples of outdated workflows that involve faxes or compact discs. Several members suggested aligning EHR rollouts and community-provider scheduling efforts to reduce fragmentation and shorten wait times for appointments.
Members also asked how VA would encourage community providers to join the community care scheduling program so the external provider scheduling (EPS) tool will operate effectively. Collins said third-party administrator contracts for community care had been delayed and that VA was reworking RFIs and qualification standards to get better performance from contractors and administrators.
Committee members said they supported EHRM’s standardization but warned the department must ensure sufficient IT staffing and training at sites undergoing transition. Collins said he had asked deputy and program leads to accelerate site additions and that deputy-level management would focus daily on the program moving forward; he also asked Congress to sustain oversight and funding to finish the rollout reliably and safely.
