At Hearing, Senator Murray Presses VA Leaders for Answers and Solutions on Electronic Health Record System Failures

***WATCH SENATOR MURRAY’S FULL QUESTIONING HERE***

(Washington, D.C.) – Today, during a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee (SVAC) oversight hearing, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member of SVAC, joined her Senate colleagues in questioning Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Oracle Corporation officials for an update on the status of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program. The hearing included testimony from Dr. Terry Adirim, Program Executive Director of the Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office at VA; David Case, Deputy Inspector General at VA Office of Inspector General (OIG); and Mike Sicilia, Executive Vice President of Oracle Corporation.

During the hearing, Senator Murray underscored the recurring problems associated with the program rollout and once again made clear that the system should not be implemented anywhere else in Washington state until VA resolves its issues and implements recommendations by VA OIG. Senator Murray has been consistently pushing for accountability and solutions in light of recent reports published by VA OIG highlighting more failures caused by the EHRM rollout.

“There continue to be flaws with the EHR that risk patient care and safety and VA’s written testimony does not match what I heard from the providers. I don’t want to hear aa rosy picture and minimizing the concerns—I don’t want to hear any of that. VA might have inherited this program but you own it now, and VA owes our veterans a system that works and puts patients first,” said Senator Murray. “And I’ve said it before, VA cannot roll out this system anywhere else in Washington state until the issues with the system are resolved and the Inspector General’s recommendations are implemented by the VA and closed by the Inspector General. The focus right now needs to be fixing this in Spokane.”

“I want to ask you Dr. Adirim, you answered in response to a question about how many outages there had been, where you said 24 outages and 48 degradations,” continued Senator Murray. “[The] Spokesman-Review printed an article just yesterday with a document that suggests those numbers underestimate the true frequency of disruptions in the system. The document they have includes more than 180 incidents classified as degradations, downtime, and full or partial outages that have affected the system’s users just since 2021. Do you know why that might be?”

In her response, Dr. Adirim indicated no knowledge of the document Senator Murray referred to. Senator Murray noted there appears to be a major discrepancy between what VA is publicly saying and how many of these failures are being reported, and emphasized the need for answers and accountability.

During her questioning, Senator Murray noted the challenges VA providers have faced delivering care to veterans while working under Cerner’s faulty system and VA’s botched rollout. Murray questioned Dr. Gerard Cox, VA’s Assistant Under Secretary for Health for Quality and Patient Safety, on whether it is responsible to continue rolling out the Cerner system with its existing flaws and inadequate workarounds.

“As I’ve said, I have talked to veterans who have suffered serious harm—I’ve talked to them personally—as a result of the EHR failures. I have talked to providers, personally, who are doing double the work to make sure they meet their patients’ needs while navigating this flawed system. I continue to insist that facilities like Spokane keep their over-hires to manage this workload,” said Senator Murray. “Dr. Cox, is it responsible for VA to continue rolling out this program with its existing flaws and inadequate workarounds when there have clearly been instances of patient harm and when monitoring patient safety reports could become unsustainable?”

Dr. Cox did not answer yes or no definitively; instead, citing confidence in VA taking sufficient steps to build safeguards knowing where the vulnerabilities are based on experiences in Spokane to reduce the risk of additional harm or similar problems at other sites. Senator Murray reiterated she expects answers back from VA on the number of outages that have occurred.

Senator Murray has been conducting oversight on the EHR rollout at Mann-Grandstaff VAMC for years:

• September 2018 – January 2020: She pressed then-VA Secretary Wilkie about the EHR rollout in September of 2018 and wrote a letter in January 2020 to VA leadership expressing her concern on reports of staffing and facility issues at Mann-Grandstaff VAMC, and how those issues could affect the EHR rollout. Following Senator Murray’s actions, VA initially delayed rollout of the EHR program at Mann-Grandstaff until March 2020.
• July 2021: Senator Murray pressed Secretary McDonough on patient safety in light of reports of veterans receiving incorrect medications, the need for more staff support from VA, and how VA will avoid the issues that have arisen at Mann-Grandstaff VAMC moving forward and at other VA medical centers.
• December 2021: Senator Murray pressed Secretary McDonough for solutions and transparency during a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing. During the hearing, Senator Murray underscored VA’s responsibility to address the problems that veterans are seeing at Mann-Grandstaff VAMC, and pressed Secretary McDonough for assurances that these issues would be resolved quickly and would not arise at other VA medical centers in Washington state, such as Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VAMC in Walla Walla.
• March 2022: Senator Murray issued a statement demanding a pause of the Cerner Electronic Health Record system rollout in Washington state, citing patient safety risks, and demanding the concerns laid out in reports from VA OIG – and previous reports over the last two years – be resolved first before the EHR program be deployed at any other sites in Washington state.
• June 2022: Senator Murray issued a statement on VA’s decision to suspend its rollout of the Cerner EHR modernization in Washington state and other parts of the country until 2023. That same month, Senator Murray helped pass the bipartisan VA Electronic Health Record Transparency Act into law. The legislation she helped introduce will increase transparency at VA by requiring the Secretary to submit periodic reports to Congress regarding the costs, performance metrics, and outcomes for Oracle Cerner EHR system rollout.
• July 2022: Senator Murray spoke with providers and held an in-person press conference at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane outlining her efforts to deliver solutions and accountability for the deeply flawed rollout of the Oracle Cerner EHR system.

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