VA Announces First Cerner EHR Go-Live at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center

Highlights on this story:

Cerner today announced the historic and successful first deployment of a modern EHR at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, WA.
The go-live marks the first time in history three federal departments (VA, DOD, and USCG) are using the same EHR.

Cerner Corporation today announced the historic and successful first deployment of a modern electronic health record (EHR) at Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, WA. The go-live marks the first time in history three federal departments are using the same EHR — a historic milestone toward improving the secure and seamless exchange of health information across the federal government.

In addition to the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center, the EHR was implemented at its four community-based outpatient clinics across Washington, Montana, and Idaho, as well as the West Consolidated Patient Account Center, a VA business operations facility in Las Vegas.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) now joins the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Homeland Security, via the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), in the successful deployment of Cerner-powered technology that will create a single health record for 18 million Service members, Veterans plus their family members. The technology is designed to provide Service members a smoother transition when they leave active duty, as well as provide VA clinicians the information they need to help Veterans get quality individualized care.

“This new system is much more than an EHR,” said Travis Dalton, president, Cerner Government Services. “It is a platform to help drive interoperability across the continuum of care and ensure data flows between federal agencies and to commercial partners. This can help improve health outcomes, create public health infrastructure, enable more effective predictive clinical models and create better informed research critical to solving some of the nation’s most pressing health challenges, such as suicide and the opioid epidemic. Though there is still much work to be done, this go-live, along with the deployment of Cerner’s Centralized Scheduling Solution at Columbus and joint health information exchange are key proof points that EHRM is and will continue to be a success. We congratulate VA on this historic achievement and are proud to support this momentous initiative.”