Former VA EHR executive charged with accepting gifts from government contractors

A former executive at the Department of Veterans Affairs who led the deployment of a new Electronic Health Record has been charged with concealing thousands of dollars in cash and gifts he allegedly received from government contractors.

John Windom, the former executive director of VA’s Office of EHR Modernization, was charged by the Justice Department on Wednesday for allegedly failing to disclose thousands of dollars in cash, casino chips, Louis Vuitton gift cards and other items he received while leading the project.

According to the indictment, Windom, a retired Navy captain, “was accountable for the long-term vision, strategic management and technical direction” of EHR modernization. That includes the VA awarding the multibillion-dollar EHR contract to Cerner in May 2018. Cerner was acquired by Oracle in June 2022, and is now called Oracle Health.

In 2022, Windom became the deputy director of the Federal Electronic Health Modernization office, a joint DoD-VA initiative to support the delivery of a single, integrated EHR.

VA’s EHR modernization project is one of the largest IT contracts in the federal government. The project has stalled under multiple administrations and has ballooned well beyond its initial $10 billion estimate. The indictment comes weeks before the VA planned to resume EHR deployments. The VA is planning for its new EHR from Oracle-Cerner to go live at 13 sites in 2026 — starting with four sites in Michigan in April.

The VA has been in a “reset” period since April 2023, pausing new go-lives until the department addresses persistent outages and usability issues reported by VA medical staff already using the new EHR. A Government Accountability Office report last year found that only 13% of VA staff using the new Oracle-Cerner EHR believed the modernized system made VA as efficient as possible, and 58% of users believed the new system increased patient safety risks. The project faces bipartisan concern from Congress.

Ed Meagher, a former VA deputy assistant secretary for IT and deputy chief information officer during the George W. Bush administration, said Windom frequently spoke at industry conferences about the EHR modernization project.

“Industry was very excited about how this was going to play out. And he was the face of it,” Meagher said. “Everybody wanted to have him come speak at their conference, and he spent a lot of time doing just that.”

Senate VA Committee Chairman Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) said in a statement would be “monitoring any potential impacts this case may have on the upcoming rollout of the Electronic Health Record Modernization program.”

House VA Committee Chairman Mike Bost (R-Ill.) said in a statement that the allegations against Windom “are incredibly concerning.”

“Senior executives working in the federal government have no business using their titles to skirt the law and violate VA and the public’s trust in their position serving in the federal government,” Bost said.

The Justice Department alleges that Windom, during his tenure at the VA, convened a group of minority-owned business owners, executives and employees who performed prime contracting and subcontracting work for the VA — and in some cases, the department’s EHR modernization project. Windom allegedly referred to these contractors as the “Power Group” and sought to mentor them in building successful government contracting businesses.

But the Justice Department claims Windom was also accepting, “and sometimes demanding, extravagant gifts from a group of contractors and subcontractors who worked on the project he was overseeing.” In return, the indictment states Windom used his position as ERHM executive director to “encourage, monitor, and facilitate contracting and subcontracting opportunities for members of the Power Group, related and unrelated to the EHRM project.”

After Windom demanded that Cerner improve its diversity and inclusion efforts, the company entered into a $1.7 million diversity recruiting and talent management contract led by one member of the Power Group, according to the indictment. Another member of the Power Group with whom Windom allegedly had a romantic relationship was designated as the lead on that diversity work.

Between August 2017 and June 2021, Windom allegedly went out to restaurants and bars with members of the Power Group, including a lounge at the MGM Casino in National Harbor, Maryland. According to the indictment, Power Group members “routinely covered defendant Windom’s associated expenses at these events,” and provided him with gifts, meals, alcohol and entertainment.

The indictment states that Windom “threatened economic and reputational harm to members of the Power Group, particularly but not only when they were not meeting his diversity-related networking expectations.” The indictment states that after a member of the Power Group missed out on several of the group’s social events, Windom yelled at him and threatened to “take [his] f***ing contract.”

Another member of the Power Group, the owner of a Maryland-based IT firm that was a prime contractor on the EHR modernization project, contacted Windom in January 2019, after the VA contracting office issued a request for information concerning testing work that was then being done by his company. According to the indictment, the Power Group member asked Windom to “interfere now,” and requested that the RFI be “pulled back.”

According to the indictment, when one member of the Power Group, the co-owner of a Virginia-based health IT company, raised concerns about Windom’s interactions with contractors, Windom told the executive, “If you don’t like it, get off. You can get the f*** off this ride.”

According to the indictment, Windom told members of the Power Group to tell no one about their personal relationship with him.

“Don’t mention to another person that you know me, interact with me or have any type of relationship with me,” Windom allegedly told member of the Power Group in August 2018.

In a January 2020 message to the Power Group, Windom allegedly told members that, “as a reminder, ‘loose lips sink ships.’’’

When questioned by federal agents in June 2021, Windom denied accepting any gifts from government contractors, according to the indictment. Questioned again in March 2024, Windom allegedly told investigators that he accepted “several hundred” dollars in casino chips from contractors.

After being questioned by agents, the indictment states Windom told members of the Power Group to tell investigators that he paid for his meals “that he well knew had been paid for by members of the Power Group,” and to instruct other members of the group to say the same thing if approached by investigators.

Windom faces charges of concealment of material facts, making false statements, and falsification of a record or document in relation to his failure to report gifts he received.

VA Inspector General Cheryl Mason said in a statement that “this indictment sends a clear message that the VA OIG is committed to holding individuals accountable, including VA employees who are alleged to have misused their position of public trust for personal gain.”

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said these alleged offenses “are not only a betrayal of the public trust — it undermines confidence in the institutions dedicated to serving those who have sacrificed for this country.”

“As alleged, the defendant exploited his senior position for personal gain and concealed gifts and financial relationships that created serious conflicts of interest in the health care of our nation’s veterans,” Pirro said.

Windom, the VA and Oracle did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.

After VA launched its new EHR at its first site in fall 2020, Windom told reporters that “a lot of things worked.” The Defense Department completed its own deployment of the same EHR system in 2024, but the VA has only deployed it to six sites. The original goal of the EHR project was to seamlessly transition the health records of service members to the VA once they leave the military.

Full deployment would bring the EHR to 170 sites. The VA inspector general’s office found in September 2024 that the new EHR has seen more than 800 major incidents.

Deputy VA Secretary Paul Lawrence told Federal News Network in an interview last month that the EHR is now meeting uptime targets defined in its contract with the vendor, and that 10 of the past 12 months have been “incident-free.”

“We tell everybody the system is reliable,” Lawrence said.

Meagher said he has concerns about the state of the EHR modernization project, but said the indictment probably won’t have any effect on VA’s plans to resume go-lives next month.

“It doesn’t seem to be a concern to anybody. They have spent this time not improving the product. They have spent this time figuring out how to handle any resistance to it,” Meagher said.

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