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The head of the Department of Veterans Affairs said Monday the agency will scrap its current electronic-records system and use the same system as the one now operating at the Defense Department. Dr. David Shulkin, the VA secretary, said the department will transition away from its antiquated electronic-records system and use a system interoperable with that used by the Defense Department, a yearslong goal for the two departments. (Kesling, 6/5)

Shulkin said the VA will adopt the same EHR system as the Defense Department, which is based on Cerner’s Millenium product. Until now, the two organizations have not adopted the same EHR system, instead spending hundreds of millions of dollars on “interoperability” – or ensuring the different IT and software systems can communicate with one another. (Margolies, 6/5)

Under the proposed change, the VA will work immediately to sign a contract with Cerner Corp., which designed the Pentagon's system, known as MHS Genesis. Shulkin said that because all the VA's patients originate in the Pentagon system, the VA would be better served if it could "trade information seamlessly." To expedite the process, Shulkin said he intended to bypass competitive bidding in favor of Cerner, noting that it took the Pentagon 26 months to finalize its contact. (6/5)

Shulkin said the exact VA contract value may not be known for three to six months, but industry observers suggested it will be worth hundreds of million of dollars. After 17 years of talking about melding the two health records systems, adoption of the same system “will ultimately result in all patient data residing in one common system,” the secretary said. (Stafford and Wise, 6/5)

“This is, essentially, the most cost-effective way to go,” Shulkin said when asked whether a cost benefit analysis had been conducted on the pick. He added that while there were "no guarantees" about how the rollout would go, DOD's previous experience implementing the upgrade would help. (Mejdrich, 6/5)

In a statement issued the same day, Cerner said the implementation "will lead to ongoing innovation, improved interoperability and the creating of a single longitudinal health record that can facilitate the efficient exchange of data among military care facilities and the thousands of civilian healthcare providers where current and former service members receive care." (Arndt, 6/5)