At Senate Veterans' Committee Hearing on Pending Legislation, Murray Speaks with Veteran Service Organizations on Her EHR RESET Act and Veterans' Long Term Care Bill

Hearing

"I, as you know, have been raising concerns about VA's implementation of EHR from the start. And when I say start--I mean before the ink was even dry on the contract between Oracle Cerner and the Trump Administration was signed. And the criteria for success is pretty straightforward to me. Does it work for our providers? Does it work for our patients? Are we helping veterans get the care that they deserve? Which is what I'm focused on when I talk with our veterans back in Spokane and Walla Walla. Unfortunately, it was pretty clear early on that this new system was missing that mark in lots of ways. Whether it is the providers in Spokane who are really burnt out just trying to navigate the broken interface, or the patients who are unable to get the medicine they rely on because of system malfunctions. And as we all know, a flawed system can be fatal--and I have previously discussed here about a constituent of mine who received a late cancer diagnosis because this system didn't work the way it was supposed to.

So, it is painfully, devastatingly, clear to me that this system has been not working for our veterans or our providers, and is broken… We need more than a reset--we need reforms that make sure the problems with EHR are not just fixed, but don't ever happen again in the future. Many of those problems stem from the deeply flawed, single-source contract the Trump Administration agreed to back in 2018--we should all agree on that. Regardless, we should be doing everything we possibly can to make sure we have a VA where veterans can get the highest quality of care.

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Our population of veterans is aging, and we have to make sure that there are long-term care options available for them. That's exactly why I joined Chair Tester and Ranking Member Moran in introducing the bipartisan Expanding Veterans' Options for Long Term Care Act, creating a pilot program for veterans to get assisted living care… Can you talk a little bit about what some of our veterans are facing in our rural areas in terms of long-term care?"

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