Shulkin: VA will adopt DoD’s health records system
David sends us a link to the Washington Times which reports that VA Secretary David J. Shulkin announced last night the Veterans’ Affairs Department will adopt the same electronic healthcare records filing system that the Department of Defense uses so the two can more easily transfer records. I know this doesn’t seem like a big deal, but the VA, for the last twelve years has spent billions of dollars trying to build a system that was compatible with the Pentagon’s system instead of just using the same system.
“I have decided that VA will adopt the same [electronic health records] system as DoD,” Mr. Shulkin said. “It’s time to move forward.”
Mr. Trump said the use of two separate systems “has caused massive problems for our veterans.”
“We are finally taking steps to solve the situation once and for all,” the president said.
Mr. Shulkin is issuing a waiver on open bidding requirements due to “the urgency and the critical nature of this decision.” The move means that the VA can issue a solicitation directly to Cerner Corporation for acquisition of the EHR system currently used by the Defense Department.
Veterans likely won’t see changes for several years, with the software contract to be forged over the next six months, and the system’s custom design and implementation to take much longer. Mr. Shulkin couldn’t estimate the eventual cost but noted that the VA system will be bigger and more complex than the Pentagon’s, which cost about $4.3 billion.
Like I said, the department has flushed billions of dollars into the black hole of contractors with no results, other than a long list of failures. Those failures were used as an excuse by the last few secretaries for not processing claims fast enough.
This should have been done from the start. At least someone with some common sense seems to be in charge now.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
Jesus, REALLY?
WTF Just happened??
I DON’T LIKE THIS.
CHANGE IS NOT GOOD!!
I’m comfortable with waste and abuse and fraud and I don’t want to be effective and work properly.
/WON’T SOMEBODY THINK ABOUT THE VA ADMINISTRATOR’S JOBS?!?!?!?!?
//burn it to the ground all admin and management folks, except the medical staff.
And don’t forget the administrator’s children.
It’s always about “the children”…
…that’s why we call them pedophiles.
I think this has to be a first for any government agency.
Instead of hiring contractors to re-create the wheel, use a working system? Whodathunkit?
(Full disclosure: I am currently sitting twiddling my thumbs watching a contractor struggle to fix a problem that would take me 15 minutes – including testing time – to address.)
No pushing him out of the way and having a “listen up, son, here’s how you do it” moment?
Unfortunately, no Mason. The contractor would then have the out that any future failure would be my fault.
Given the number of failures this project has had, that is not a fight I want to get in.
Now if they could just get the VA and DoD to communicate for verification of veterans service to ensure that the benefits are given to actual Service Veterans…..how hard can it be to verify a DD 214 or a FOIA release??
I think there may be one or two people here that could school the VA without costing the tax payers billions.
the system you refer to exists now. And the current military medical records system was designed with the VA in mind…but they hate accountability…so….
I was part of the implementation team. Spent nearly a year digitally scanning records in, getting folks trained, etc.
All the while being told the VA is doing the exact same thing we’re doing right now, following the same timelines, so that when the “go live” date comes the switch is flipped and everything is seamless
8 months into this and about 4 months before the go live date we were at a conference.
We asked the VA reps how their implementation was going and if they were having the same bugs as us?
Deer in headlight look
“GENESIS? What the fuck is that? Never heard of it and we have no idea what you’re talking about” the VA tells us
I was stunned
Just more proof that the “admin” types at the VA can fuck up a wet dream…
I’ve seen this too many times to be surprised.
“Resigned” perhaps.
an actual step in the right direction? this is actually happening and we aren’t having a shared pipe dream?
It’s nice to see people who can actually get things done in charge for a change.
Great. Now the VA’s system can import all of the digital ‘Corpsman hates me’ flags from the DoD system…
“Sorry El Tee. We just cannot find your shot record…”
Never piss off Doc when he has your health record in his/her hands…NEVER!
I had a marine CPL that had a thing for Docs… came in and announced to the BAS “FUCK DOCS”. I had his Corpsman make up an identical record… called him in and asked him if he yelled that in the BAS. When he told me that he did, I pulled him outside and burned his “record” in front of him in front of the BAS crew… the look on his face was priceless! Told him that he needed to show up at 0700 to “update his shots”… everyone in the BAS, including me, got to give him sterile water injections for a month to make sure that his “shots” were up to date.
Priceless.
It’s an immutable truth that you never, ever, tick off a judge, doctor, medic, nurse or sergeant.
At least not if you want a nice, quiet life.
Holy Crap I thought they already did that
Haven forbid we do something that makes sense or works
About time. That said, better now rather than later. Plus, this might actually work.
Trust me. The VA will sabotage it.
This same thing was supposes to happen, BY LAW, on 30 SEP 2014
The VA completely ignored the directive and sabotaged attempts at implementation
For you old timers a little personal example of how utterly ridiculous this is
I retired from the Army on 1 July 2015
6 months prior I had to take my military retirement physical and turn a complete copy of the results over to the VA
A month later I had to take another EXACT same physical through the VA
Once I got my rating (2 months after I retired) I had to take another EXACT SAME complete physical through the VA to get into VA medical
None of the results from the other physicals made it into or were used by the other physicals
The unions will be screaming bloody murder, too. Can’t be having anyone doing it right ya know.
It’s baffling how much money the government will spend to try and save costs. It’s like when my wife buys needless crap “cause I had a coupon.”
Problem being that buying needless crap just because you have a coupon actually makes more sense than what we get when the gubmint spends money. At least you do end up with the needless crap and paid less than list price for it. (Not that it was ever a good idea.)
When the gubmint spends money you usually don’t end up with anything and spend 12 times more than retail for it. Or, you pay 6 times more than it is worth and it is outdated when you get it and have to pay 8 more times to get the new version, which will also be outdated when you get it 4 years after it was due.
Too true. I explain it thusly to new employees in my government agency;
So the highways are clogged and need to be exoanded now. They start with a committee, reasearch the needs and wants, what’s available for expansion, etc. This takes 5-10 years to draft the plans for expansion. Now we have a plan to expand, based on traffic congestion from 5-10 years ago.
This plan is budgeted for, but the politicians argue it for two or three years. Once the project is funded and started, it takes another two or three years to finish.
Once done, we’ve expanded a road that’s been over capacity for 15 years such that it can handle the traffic needs of ten years ago. So we have a nice, new road over capacity again to start the process anew.
Same reason the govt always gets “new” technology 10 years behind the rest of the world. Flip phones are still all too common among govt employees. We still used the PLGR GPS from the Gulf War when I was in tech school 15 years ago. Off the shelf GPS units were faster, cheaper, and gave actual map images. Which is what everyone going to the sandbox bought before deploying.
From their point of view, what you describe is a feature, not a bug.
There is an article in today’s KANSAS CITY STAR Newspaper about this announcement. Cerner is the name of the company doing this project. It was a no-bid contract. Details about project scope and cost to be determined over the next 3 to 6 months.
Cerner is a local KC Company. I’ll post a link later, on tablet for now.
Here is the link I mentioned earlier:
==> ” http://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article154409509.html “
Is there LIFELOCK for medical records?
There will be a shitstorm the second someone’s health records get compromised.
Only when someone finds out they’ve been compromised.
I suspect it is not a matter of “when”, much less “if”, but of “when does someone find out” and “when does someone acknowledge that it has happened.”
And, if I remember correctly, LIFELOCK itself has been hacked.
Great, the same system that lost 19 years of my active duty medical records will be responsible for my VA records.