***WATCH SENATOR MURRAY’S FULL QUESTIONING HERE***
(Washington, D.C.) – Today,during a Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member of the Committee, expressed her continued frustration about the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) flawed rollout of the Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program to VA medical centers, clinics, and other facilities—and pressed VA officials on their plans to make the situation right. During the hearing, Senator Murray underscored the various safety risks the EHRM program has posed to veterans in need of medical care, and demanded more clarity on the path forward in light of the numerous problems caused by the system.
“We are almost five years into this EHR contract. From the very start—before the original Cerner contract was even agreed to by the Trump administration—I have been raising concerns from my constituents in Spokane and Walla Walla, and I believe I have been patient and reasonable in pressing VA and Oracle Cerner to get this system to work the way it should,” said Senator Murray. “I have heard from providers who are burnt out trying to navigate this broken interface on top of what has already been an incredibly trying time for health care workers. I have heard directly from my constituents who have received a late cancer diagnosis because of the flaws in this system.”
“None of this is okay,” said Senator Murray. “And something that concerns me deeply is we have not heard a whole lot about how those voices and that on-the-ground perspective will be taken into account when we determine the future of this program.”
At Wednesday’s hearing, Senator Murray noted the challenges patients and providers have faced as a result of VA’s flawed EHRM system. During her questioning, Senator Murray asked VA officials about their plans to renew their contract with Oracle Cerner in spite of severe ongoing problems and delayed updates to the system. Senator Murray also made clear that as Chair of the Appropriations Committee and Chair of theMilitary Construction and Veterans Affairs subcommittee, she will not provide a blank check to fund a broken system with no clear plan of action to fix its flaws.
“As Chair of the Appropriations committee, Chair of the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs subcommittee, and a long-time member of this committee, I take my oversight responsibility pretty darn serious,” said Senator Murray. “Despite how much funding has been provided, this system is by no means living up to our promise to care for our veterans—the continued patient safety risks are totally unacceptable.”
“So I want to be candid here because at the end of the day, what I care about is getting this right for our veterans, and I do not believe that more money is what is going to solve this problem,” continued Senator Murray. “I am not sure it makes sense that we need to fully fund the budget request for this system until I can see that the system is working and not putting our veterans in harm’s way. That responsibility is on both VA and Oracle Cerner, and both entities need to step up.”
Senator Murray has been conducting oversight on the flawed EHR rollout at Mann-Grandstaff VAMC for years. 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. In July of 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. Senator Murray has since raised the need to resolve issues with care at Mann-Grandstaff with Secretary McDonough and other VA officials multiple times in private meetings and public hearings.
In December of 2021, Senator Murray again 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 were 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. Importantly, Senator Murray pressed Secretary McDonough for concrete steps being taken to address the challenges in Spokane and secured a commitment from him that VA would share clear indicators of readiness before deploying the new EHR program at any other sites in Washington state, specifically Walla Walla.
In March of last year, Senator Murray demanded 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 the VA OIG – and previous reports over the last two years – be resolved before the EHR program is deployed at any other sites in Washington state. In May, during a Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing, Senator Murray again pressed VA Secretary McDonough to halt the rollout of the Cerner Electronic Health Record System rollout in Washington state until the program’s ongoing issues are fixed. On June 8, Murray and SVAC committee Chairman Jon Tester (D-MT) urged Secretary McDonough to address and fix repeated failures of Oracle Cerner’s EHR program at VA medical centers in Washington state and across the country. In October, following Senator Murray’s push, VA announced it would delay the rollout of the Oracle Cerner EHR system at VA Puget Sound Health Care System until after June 2023.
In the omnibus appropriations bill that passed in December of 2022, Senator Murray secured critical language to ensure accountability and transparency from VA in its implementation of the Electronic Health Records Modernization. The bill requires VA to submit to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations quarterly reports detailing obligations, expenditures, and deployment implementation by facility, including any changes from the deployment plan or schedule. The bill also states that 25 percent of the funds will not be available until July 1, 2023, and are contingent upon VA providing the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations a report detailing the status of outstanding issues impacting the stability and usability of EHR.
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