[Ed. note: This piece has been updated to include comments from the Department of Veterans Affairs spokespeople.]

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs announced this week that it had launched its new Cerner electronic health record at the VA Central Ohio Healthcare System in Columbus, Ohio, marking the third rollout of its kind.  

The go-live includes the VA clinics in Grove City, Marion, Newark and Zanesville, said the agency.  

"This electronic health record rollout is an important step in our progress toward a single instance of a medical record connecting VA, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security’s U.S. Coast Guard that will provide all our patients with seamless care from active duty to veteran status,” said program executive director of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office Dr. Terry Adirim in a statement.

WHY IT MATTERS

The VA noted changes it had made with the EHR program since the October 2020 deployment in Spokane, Washington.   

The shifts included adding more computer-based instruction to provide users with more flexibility and autonomy; identifying "super-users" and adding them to activities, such as system demonstrations, workshops and testing; and providing increased over-the-shoulder support during go-lives.  

The Columbus rollout came after several EHR outages at federal clients over the past week, as reported by FedScoop. The downtime affected DOD, Coast Guard and VA users, who were unable to access patient records through the system.  

The first incident on Monday lasted for 127 minutes. VA Deputy Chief Information Officer for EHR Modernization Laura Prietula told lawmakers at a congressional hearing Tuesday that it had taken place due to "load imbalance."  

The second incident on Tuesday was initially reported to be about six hours; VA spokespeople told Healthcare IT News it had lasted about three hours.  

"Cerner teams immediately responded to both incidents, getting the Cerner EHR back online within hours," said spokespeople after press time. "All systems are now up and running as designed. Cerner clients have protocols in place that allow providers to continue administering safe and effective care during downtime."

"Cerner continues to work closely with our federal partners to address any and all concerns. This includes immediate response to system outages," said Pat Sargent, general manager of Cerner Government Services, in a statement to Healthcare IT News.   

"We view any downtime, however brief, as unacceptable and remain committed to empowering the delivery of timely, high-quality care to service members, veterans, and their families through a modern, interoperable electronic health record," Sargent continued.

This past week, the VA Office of the Inspector General also released a report saying VA had not complied with the Federal Acquisition Regulation in at least one instance, when it paid Cerner for work related to the EHR modernization initiative.  

THE LARGER TREND  

The outages echoed an incident from April in which VA, DOD and Coast Guard clients of the new Cerner EHR found themselves unable to update medical records for hours. That incident followed a system outage in March that took the EHR offline at VA hospitals, potentially affecting the records of more than 200 veterans.

Still, the launch of the new EHR at Walla Walla on March 26 went forward as planned, with officials saying they were "excited for this new journey."

ON THE RECORD  

"With each VA site that adopts this system, we gain momentum. The lessons we carry forward from site to site are refining our rollouts and improving end-user experiences," said Adirim in a statement.

Kat Jercich is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Twitter: @kjercich
Email: kjercich@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.