Afrigather In an announcement to the U.S. Home of Representatives Committee on Veterans Affairs, the VA’s Workplace of Inspector Normal reported that if veterans have had remedy at one in every of 5 websites utilizing the division’s Oracle Well being digital well being document after which comply with up at a website on the legacy Vista EHR, their remedy info could also be incorrect.
WHY IT MATTERS
“Though Oracle Well being has since resolved a number of the NCPS-identified points, the OIG is anxious that the brand new EHR will proceed to be deployed at medical services earlier than resolving the remaining points associated to inaccurate remedy ordering, reconciliation and allotting that may have an effect on affected person security,” mentioned David Case, deputy inspector common at OIG in an announcement to the Home Veterans Committee’s subcommittee on expertise modernization at a February 15 listening to on the security and efficacy of the beleaguered EHR.
OIG has offered the VA extra 70 suggestions for corrective motion since April 2020, Chase famous within the statement. Along with the nationwide pharmacy-related affected person questions of safety, ongoing scheduling impacts veteran affected person engagement and appointment wait instances stay, he mentioned.
Case reported that the current OIG work on pharmacy-related affected person questions of safety started with a reported prescription backlog on the VA Central Ohio Healthcare System in Columbus, Ohio after the Oracle go live in April 2022.
“The OIG discovered that facility leaders took well timed and sustainable steps to handle the backlog subject,” he mentioned within the assertion.
“Throughout its evaluation, nevertheless, the OIG recognized different unresolved high-risk affected person questions of safety, together with affected person remedy inaccuracies, consumer challenges, inaccurate remedy knowledge, workers’s creation of quite a few workarounds to supply affected person care, a quantity of workers academic supplies for pharmacy-related features that was overwhelming and inadequate staffing.”
Case offered the representatives an summary of the error in Oracle Well being’s software program coding, which resulted within the widespread transmission of incorrect of distinctive remedy identifiers from new EHR websites to legacy EHR websites by way of the company’s well being knowledge repository.
“The OIG realized these distinctive identifiers turned inaccurate throughout their transmission to the HDR when fills for sure prescriptions had been processed by way of the Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy (known as the mail order pharmacy),” mentioned Case.
Whereas Oracle patched the software program to make sure the accuracy of the remedy identifiers, the wrong knowledge – entered way back to October 2020 – was not corrected.
“The mail-order pharmacy-related knowledge generated from roughly 120,000 sufferers served by new EHR websites are nonetheless incorrect,” he mentioned.
“These sufferers face an ongoing threat of an hostile medication-related occasion in the event that they obtain care and medicines from a VA medical middle utilizing the legacy EHR system.”
He famous that with the invention, OIG discovered additional issues with the transmission of remedy and allergy info from the brand new EHR to the HDR.
The implications embody discontinued medicines by new EHR-site suppliers showing within the legacy EHR as energetic and present prescriptions and related errors with allergy warnings and different incomplete or inaccurate info.
We now have reached out to Oracle Well being for remark and can replace this story as extra info turns into accessible.
THE LARGER TREND
This previous yr, the VA renegotiated its with Oracle (which acquired Cerner in 2021) following 5 years of rollout challenges and efficiency points with the Cerner EHR that impacted veterans’ care. In at the least one report, a veteran was hospitalized after medication was dropped from the list in the EHR.
Medicine administration underneath the EHR modernization program has been a priority for OIG and lawmakers because the incident at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Middle in Spokane, Washington, in 2022.
“The OIG shouldn’t be assured in [Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office] leaders’ oversight and management of the brand new techniques’ HDR interface programming,” Case mentioned within the assertion final week.
ON THE RECORD
“As of September 2023, about 250,000 veterans – who both obtained remedy orders or had remedy allergic reactions documented within the new EHR from October 2020 – could also be unaware of the potential threat for a medication- or allergy-related affected person security occasion in the event that they obtain care at a legacy EHR website,” Case mentioned.
“A VHA chief instructed the OIG that, as of December 2023, that they had no data of the event of a complete technique to conduct a look-back of the care of the rising variety of sufferers who’ve obtained and proceed to obtain providers, together with remedy prescriptions, at legacy websites,” he mentioned.
Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT Information.
E mail: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT Information is a HIMSS Media publication.
