VA to spend $4.9 billion maintaining VistA EHR

It will cost the Veterans Affairs Department at least $4.89 billion to maintain its current electronic health record system during its Cerner transition, department officials told lawmakers last week.

The VA now uses a homegrown EHR called VistA, which agency programmers and clinicians developed in the 1970s. Now, under a $10 billion contract the VA inked with Cerner last year, the agency plans to transition to a Cerner EHR over 10 years, bringing its first sites live on the new system in 2020.

“As the nationwide Cerner rollout progresses, VA will decommission VistA instances as necessary,” Dr. Paul Tibbits, executive director of the office of technical integration in the VA’s office of information and technology, said at a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing. “During the transition period the VA must maintain VistA to ensure current patient-record accessibility and continued delivery of quality of care.”

The VA previously said that VistA cost the agency $2.3 billion from 2015 to 2017, however, this figure is “neither reliable nor comprehensive,” said Carol Harris, director for IT acquisition management at the Government Accountability Office. That’s partially because costs related to VistA’s infrastructure and personnel were not well-documented, according to a GAO report.

Tibbits said the VA is working with the Office of Management and Budget to implement a new framework to classify IT costs and stands by the VA’s current $4.89 billion projection for the next 10 years.