*** Denis McDonough, the secretary of Veterans Affairs, told the House Veterans Affairs Committee on Tuesday that the agency is not "changing out from the Cerner system," despite ongoing difficulties with the $16 billion electronic health record modernization program that led to a review of the program. McDonough said that the review is expected to be concluded in the next couple of weeks.
McDonough also said he was seeking $3 billion for the EHR project in the 2022 budget, with $1.5 going to the Cerner contract – which he explained was an increase of $300 million, "due to expanded scope of work." He added that $1.2 billion would go to needed infrastructure upgrades and the rest would go to program management as well as an accelerated deployment of the agency's planned centralized scheduling system.
*** The Department of Veterans Affairs' May 25 award of an estimated $500 million cloud migration contract to Peraton is being challenged by a rival, Washington Technology reports. ThunderCat Technology filed its protest with the Government Accountability Office on June 1.
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