On June 5, 2017, Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Dr. David J. Shulkin announced his decision related to the next-generation EHR system for the Department of Veterans Affairs www.va.gov . As announced, the VA will adopt the same EHR system as the Department of Defense www.defense.gov now known as MHS GENESIS.
VA’s adoption of the same EHR system as the Department of Defense will ultimately result in all patient data residing in one common system and enable seamless care between the Departments without the manual and electronic exchange and reconciliation of data between two separate systems.
Secretary Shulkin said, “Because of the urgency and the critical nature of this decision, I have decided that there is a public interest exception to the requirement for a full and open competition in this technology acquisition.
Secretary Shulkin signed a document known as a “Determination and Findings” (D&F) which is a special form of written approval by an authorized official that is required by statute or regulation as a prerequisite to taking certain contract actions.
The D&F notes that there is a public interest exception to the requirement for full and open competition, and determines that the VA may issue a solicitation directly to Cerner Corporation for the acquisition of the EHR system currently being deployed by DOD, for deployment and transition across the VA enterprise in a manner that meets VA needs.
According to the Secretary, “The VA has also looked at the need for the VA to adopt significant cybersecurity enhancements. We intend to leverage the architecture, tools, and processes that have already been put in place to protect DOD data, to include both physical and virtual separation from commercial clients.