WASHINGTON, D.C. — A “furious” Washington senator demanded the Department of Veterans Affairs stop the launch of a new computer system in Walla Walla after a watchdog agency on Thursday revealed dozens of problems with the system remain unresolved at Spokane’s VA hospital.
Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat who sits on the Senate VA Committee, said a trilogy of reports from VA’s Office of Inspector General showed the department’s leaders have not been honest about the extent of the problems caused by the electronic health record system — which health care workers rely on to track patients’ information and coordinate care — since it was launched at the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane in October 2020.
“It’s absolutely unacceptable to me that VA knew about widespread, egregious patient safety risks associated with its ongoing rollout” of the system, Murray said in a statement, “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.”
The new system, developed by Cerner Corp. in a $16 billion effort to replace an existing system still used by all other VA facilities, is scheduled to launch at the Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Center in Walla Walla on March 26. Despite an earlier planned rollout at facilities in Ohio being delayed to allow for more training, the top VA official in charge of the program told The Spokesman-Review on March 7 the department still intended to deploy the system in Walla Walla on schedule.
In the three reports, the Office of Inspector General said it had substantiated 46 different problems identified by veterans and VA employees, 38 of which remain unresolved nearly a year and a half after the system was launched at Mann-Grandstaff and its affiliated clinics in Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, Sandpoint, Wenatchee and Libby, Montana.
While the reports didn’t identify any patient deaths associated with the problems, VA Inspector General Michael Missal said they found “serious deficiencies and failures” that “increased the risks to patient safety and made it more difficult for clinicians to provide quality health care,” and the same would happen at other sites if not resolved.
Although the OIG did not identify any associated patient deaths during this inspection, future deployment of the new EHR without resolving deficiencies can increase risks to patient safety.
The reported issues include veterans’ prescriptions and other information not being accurately imported into the new system, prescriptions being discontinued by the system and problems with the system’s scheduling component causing delayed care.
“I do not want to see the EHR system move so much as an inch further in Washington state,” Murray said in her statement, “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.”
The Washington Democrat’s statement came several weeks after Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., called for VA to halt the system’s deployment in Walla Walla until it resolves the problems that persist in Spokane, many of which were identified by a Spokesman-Review investigation in December.
McMorris Rodgers spokesman Kyle VonEnde said in an email the Spokane congresswoman was “deeply concerned about the findings” of the Inspector General reports and stood by the request she made Feb. 3 that VA Secretary Denis McDonough delay the launch of the system in Walla Walla.
”They confirm what she has been saying all along: the electronic health record system has serious issues that need to be resolved,” VonEnde wrote. “Until then, its rollout to the Walla Walla VA must be delayed.”
The VA Office of Inspector General…
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