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The Veterans Affairs Department is looking to right-size its sprawling network of medical facilities across the country, and is planning to close or overhaul facilities that no longer meet the health care needs of veterans.
Congressional leaders urged VA to abandon a costly supply chain IT system it recently decided to borrow from the Defense Health Agency that has failed to meet VA's requirements.
As it settles in for real work after the holidays and its January 6 look-back, Congress, at least some members, are starting to wonder how the long continuing resolution is affecting the Defense Department.
Defense Medical Logistics Standard Support failed to meet more than 40% of the needs staff at the Department of Veterans Affairs' first implementation site had identified, the VA inspector general told Congress last week.
About 83% of employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs' initial go-live site in Spokane, Washington, say their morale has worsened due to the electronic health record implementation over the last year. VA is eyeing February as its target for deploying the EHR to its second site.
The process of producing a new, independent cost estimate for the electronic health record modernization project will begin later this month, the Department of Veterans Affairs told Congress, and it will take another year to complete.
House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committee leadership want more information from VA leadership about its strategy to modernize its supply chain management system.
The Department of Veterans Affairs will start from scratch on a new, independent lifecycle estimate for the electronic health record modernization project, an effort that could take another year to complete.
The pandemic has created bottlenecks within multiple points of the disability claims and appeals process, leaving the Department of Veterans Affairs to reset its timeline for resolving legacy cases.
The inspector general at the Department of Veterans Affairs delivered a double-edged blow to VA's electronic health record modernization efforts this week, detailing failures with employee training on the new system and another round of unreliable cost estimates for the project.
Veterans Affairs has finished its highly-anticipated strategic review of the electronic health record modernization program, but it needs more time to digest the details and finalize a path forward.
The Department of Veterans Affairs also envisions additional funding for its electronic health record modernization program, accountability office and diversity and inclusion initiatives, according to its 2022 budget request.
The Department of Veterans Affairs underestimated the costs of the physical infrastructure upgrades needed to prepare VA medical facilities for its new electronic health record. VA's IG said those upgrades may cost between $3.1 and 3.7 billion.
The Department of Veterans Affairs' top cybersecurity official told Congress Thursday that audits by VA, DHS and an outside firm have shown no indications the Solarwinds vulnerability was ever used for malicious activity on the department's networks.