News: GAO says the VA needs to address health data management issues in EHRM project
A report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) raises patient safety concerns caused by data quality for the Veteran Affairs (VA) EHR modernization (EHRM) project. This additional snag comes after an already long list of issues with the project, and the GAO calls for the VA to address the health data management challenges.
The VA conducted its own testing to make sure migrated data from the legacy system to the new platform were accurate, the GAO report indicates clinicians experienced changes with accuracy and completeness of the migrated data. Specifically, clinicians found issues with accessibility of data, its accuracy, and appropriateness, noting initial findings of patient safety risks in the new system due to incomplete data migration.
According to the GAO report, the challenges occurred in part because the VA did not first establish performance measures for the migrated data quality. “Until VA uses such measures and goals to better ensure the quality of migrated data, the department could deploy a new EHR system that does not meet clinicians’ needs and poses risks to the continuity of patient care,” the report states.
The VA also failed to use a tool known as a stakeholder register to identify and engage all key stakeholders when incorporating their requirements into plans for reporting continuity with preserving reporting capabilities in the EHRM project.
“Consequently, certain relevant stakeholder were overlooked. By using a stakeholder register, the department would be better positioned to meet their continuity of reporting needs,” the GAO report states.
The GAO recommends the VA first establish performance measures to ensure the quality of migrated data. Additionally, it is recommended the VA use a stakeholder register to engage all relevant EHRM project stakeholders to meet their reporting needs.
Editor’s note: The GAO report can be found here. Additional ACDIS coverage of the VA EHRM project can be found here.