Pentagon, VA say new joint office will anticipate authority for multibillion-greenback EHR initiatives

So DoD and VA officers said they’re re-chartering the IPO and giving it a brand new name: The Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization (FEHRM) Program Office. They said it would have a significant amount of choice-making authority to ensure the rollout plans for the two EHRs are synchronized as DoD and VA installation them over the subsequent decade. The office will record at once to the deputy secretaries of each department.

“The FERM will offer a complete, agile and coordinated management authority to execute necessities vital for a single, seamless, integrated EHR and will function a single factor of authority for the departments’ EHR modernization programs,” Lauren Thompson, the director of the cutting-edge IPO, instructed the House Veterans Affairs Committee this week. “It will have the authority to direct every department to execute joint selections for technical, programmatic, and functional topics under its purview and could provide oversight regarding required funding and coverage as vital.”

But the departments nonetheless have now not told Congress exactly which styles of selections will fall within the new organization’s purview. And while Congressional overseers have lengthily pressed for a more empowered joint control shape, they are saying they nevertheless don’t have enough statistics to recognize whether or not this unique one will paintings.

“Lack of cooperation has been the graveyard of all of the preceding [EHR integration] efforts,” said Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), the ranking member of the House VA era modernization subcommittee. “Factor case: you’ve got spent much of the final nine months hammering out a joint management shape. I want to assist your decisions. However, it isn’t reasonable to assume this subcommittee to suggest choices that we’ve scant details about — selections manufactured from a secretive manner. I apprehend the choice to make the settlement in private before disclosing something. The problem is that even though there has been no agreement. Compromise has been elusive because the stakes had been so excessive, and each aspect was seemingly dug in so deeply.”
No timeline yet for a brand spanking new workplace

On Wednesday night time, the House Armed Services Committee, as part of its markup of the yearly defense authorization invoice, accepted a measure Banks sponsored that might attempt to clarify at the least a few elements.

It would require that the director and the deputy director of the FERM Program Office be jointly appointed by using each the secretary of Defense and the secretary of Veterans Affairs. Both of the new leaders could need to have significant experience as clinicians, and they’d need to have already led massive-scale health IT implementation initiatives.

Whatever powers the office finishes up with, it’ll now not take shape overnight. DoD and VA stated they intend to begin shifting personnel and duty to the brand new office in 3 different levels after agreeing on a meantime director.
John Windom, the govt director of VA’s Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization, stated the phased approach is “vital.”

“It’s now not to delay, but it’s far to help the proper, efficient, and well-timed motion of assets into the FERM to support their decision-making system without compromising the risk in our present portfolios,” he stated. “The second segment would be in support of solidifying workflows and alignment with DoD in that arena. The third phase would revolve around an essential milestone referred to as initial working competencies. Until we exhibit that it works in an operational environment, it does not make experience to transport resources, and it’s the end-users to solidifying our achievement. Taking those give up customers into attention is what has pushed our three-segment approach.”

But DoD and VA officers had been unwilling to commit to a timeline for once they can probably offer Congress more excellent info on their plans.
As of now, lawmakers say they’re within the darkish about the new employer’s charter or even how a good deal time the three-segment plan will take to pull off.
Rep. Susie Lee (D-Nev.), the chairwoman of the generation modernization subcommittee, said the departments hadn’t furnished a lot a range of PowerPoint slides.

“It’s hard to find where the governance and duty are in this plan. We also are lacking information about staffing and sources,” she said. “Based on the timeline for implementation, it appears that it’s going to come too late to cope with the critical choices that have to be made. And I surprise whether the DoD and VA are invested within the idea of true joint governance and transparency, given that both declined to provide feedback on a legislative capacity option to, in the end, create an unmarried responsible joint governance workplace. I wish I’m incorrect and that they do want a real answer and a functional governance structure.”