In 2018, the VA signed a $10 billion contract with Cerner Corp. for a new electronic health record system, which has caused problems for veterans and staff since launching in Spokane in October 2020.
WASHINGTON – A former top official at the Department of Veterans Affairs, who oversaw the purchase and deployment of a flawed computer system that led to patient harm after it was launched in Spokane, was charged on Wednesday with hiding thousands of dollars in cash and other gifts he received from government contractors.
WASHINGTON – The Department of Veterans Affairs is eliminating 137 vacant positions at Spokane’s Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center as part of a nationwide effort to “streamline operations and eliminate waste,” the hospital’s director told staff on Dec. 12.
WASHINGTON – The leaders responsible for a troubled Department of Veterans Affairs computer system told House lawmakers on Monday the program is on track to expand to more than a dozen new hospitals in 2026, following a long delay due to problems that emerged after the system was first deployed at Spokane’s VA hospital five years ago.
On the eve of a major expansion, a multibillion-dollar project to upgrade the computer systems of all Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals is beset with problems, according to some medical staff who already use it. Critical patient notes disappear. Prescriptions log the wrong dosages. One nurse said the system incorrectly listed one of her patients as dead.
WASHINGTON – An email arrived in the inboxes of workers at Spokane’s Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center and employees across the federal government on Saturday afternoon with a seemingly simple request from the Office of Personnel Management.
WASHINGTON – A year after the Inland Northwest became the testing ground for a new computer system that promised to revolutionize veterans’ health care, leaders at the Department of Veterans Affairs had received grave warnings from staff at Spokane’s VA hospital and evidence that flaws in the software had contributed to serious patient harm.
WASHINGTON – Thousands of veterans who get their medications from VA medical centers using a troubled new computer system, including the veterans’ hospitals in Spokane and Walla Walla, will have to start making prescription co-payments in October after a two-year suspension of that requirement.
WASHINGTON – A House subcommittee on Thursday questioned the Department of Veterans Affairs’ plan to launch a troubled computer system at a hospital near Chicago, after problems in the Inland Northwest prompted the department to stall the system’s rollout for almost two years.
Oracle Corp.’s acquired health records unit will be led by Seema Verma, former head of Medicare in the Trump administration, who joined Oracle last year to run its life sciences businesses.
WASHINGTON – An Eastern Washington veteran and his wife are suing the federal government and the companies behind a computer system the Department of Veterans Affairs has tested in Spokane, alleging that flaws in the system delayed the diagnosis of cancer that became terminal before it could be treated.
