Senator Murray: “Here is my message to VA: stop the rollout before there is another catastrophic failure—get this right and get this fixed in Spokane first. Patient safety and the quality of care our veterans receive must come first.”
(Washington, D.C.) – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, issued the following statement in response to three newly published reports by the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG).
Earlier this month, after Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center reduced services due to issues with the new Electronic Health Record (EHR) system, Senator Murray cautioned VA that, “If their ability to deliver the high-quality care our veterans deserve becomes uncertain at any point – including up until the day before launch – the rollout should be delayed.” In her latest statement, Senator Murray is 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 today’s reports – and previous reports over the last two years – by the VA OIG be resolved.
“After hearing from the VA Office of Inspector General, it’s clear to me that VA is not ready for go-live of the EHR system at the VA Medical Center in Walla Walla and we need to put a pause on this rollout right now. Here is my message to VA: stop the rollout before there is another catastrophic failure—get this right and get this fixed in Spokane first. Patient safety and the quality of care our veterans receive must come first. Just this month, I made clear to VA that if they were not ready to continue the rollout of the Cerner EHR, they needed to stop the train in its tracks. It is time to stop the train.
“It’s absolutely unacceptable to me that VA knew about widespread, egregious patient safety risks associated with its ongoing rollout of its Cerner Electronic Health Record System—but in conversations with my office, VA has been expressing confidence and readiness for the go-live date at the Walla Walla VA. This was simply not the case.
“These are not hypothetical problems at VA; for example, veterans in Spokane have been getting the wrong medication mailed to them. This is something I raised last year in September to Secretary McDonough after hearing about it from my constituents. In other cases, the Cerner record has failed to alert providers about patients at risk for suicide—the patient safety risks outlined in these reports could not be more consequential. The allegations substantiated by the Inspector General must be addressed immediately and frankly I am furious that VA leadership and Cerner seem to be minimizing very serious problems or wrongly claiming that ongoing issues have been ‘resolved.’
“VA, and Cerner, need to be completely transparent with Congress and cannot withhold or slow walk information to the Inspector General’s office. I’m grateful to the staff who have raised these concerns with my office and the Inspector General—because without them, we would not know the extent of these patient safety risks. I commend the front line staff and providers who have been doing everything in their power to care for veterans in the face of so much adversity.
“My top priority here is the safety and health of Washington state veterans, and VA will not stop hearing from me until it stops the EHR rollout and fixes this.
“To be clear once again: I do not want to see the EHR system move so much as an inch further in Washington state until VA has proven to me that it’s fixed the problems in Spokane and provided clear, objective data showing resolutions to concerns raised by the Inspector General’s reports.”
Senator Murray has been conducting oversight on the EHR rollout at Mann-Grandstaff VAMC for years, questioning then VA Secretary Wilkie about the EHR rollout in September of 2018 and writing 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 concerns, 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 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.
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.
The long-planned restructuring of VA’s EHR system is meant to modernize VA’s current outdated record system, ease sharing of medical records between the Department of Defense and VA, as well as VA and community providers. It is projected to be completed by 2028.
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