The Department of Veterans Affairs’ electronic fitness record formula suffered two interruptions.
LEADERS at VA and Cerner told lawmakers Tuesday that the EHR formula broke down Monday for about 127 minutes and said they continue to investigate the cause of a momentary incident that occurred today.
“Today there was a breakdown in Walla Walla. . . and an interruption for 127 minutes due to a load imbalance,” said Laura Prietula, VA’s deputy director of data for modernizing electronic fitness records.
Cerner Government Services lead executive Pat Sargent added that Monday’s service interruption was due to a formula update sent out at lunchtime.
The leaders testified at a congressional hearing conducted through the House Veterans Affairs Committee to read about the VA’s long-term electronic fitness records modernization program.
The two outages are the most recent examples of disruptions with Cerner’s electronic fitness record system, which was put into service at Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Center in Walla Walla, Washington, earlier this month. The entire platform, which serves users of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Defense, and the U. S. Coast Guard. The U. S. military closes for a two-hour period on April 6.
The disruptions come amid a thorough review of the program by lawmakers on the potential influence of EHR deployment on the delivery of physical care to veterans.
On Monday, Department of Veterans Affairs Deputy Secretary Donald Remy visited the department’s medical center in Spokane and learned that, on at least two occasions, local veterans had mistakenly stopped taking their medications due to problems with medical records.
On the same day, VA Secretary Denis McDonough said his company would want to ask Congress for more money to complete the national deployment of the computer system, which is expected to cost at least $16 billion.
The secretary’s comments followed a report through the VA watchdog, which revealed that the branch failed to comply with federal procurement regulations at some point when it paid Cerner for paintings made under the contract, and said the program is likely to be expensive, about $2 billion more per year of delay.