I Wonder Will We Ever See Accountability Like This. I Won’t Hold My Breath.

The following appeared a few days ago.

Bipartisan bill would slash iEHR funding

May 16, 2013 | Erin McCann, Contributing Editor

Members of Congress are lauding a bipartisan bill that limits funding for an integrated electronic health record system between VA and DoD and requires aggressive progress updates from both agencies, which have, in recent months, come under fire for the dilatory pace at which they're moving forward with the iEHR. 

At a subcommittee mark-up hearing Wednesday, John Culberson, R-Texas, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies, called the bill a bipartisan success. "Our bill this year has dealt with the failure of DoD and VA to develop a single unified medical record in a very straightforward, commonsense way," he said.   

The bill, Culberson explained, will limit the funding toward the iEHR to 25 percent — of the $344 million requested. The agency will not receive the remaining dollars until they can prove to both agency subcommittees that they're actually implementing a plan to create and roll out a single, unified medical record.   

Just this February, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and then DoD Secretary Leon Panetta announced that plans for a fully-integrated EHR between departments would be scrapped due to cost concerns.  

Original estimates for the iEHR were pegged at $4 billion to $6 billion. However, in September 2012, the Interagency Program Office revised its previous estimates, figuring the final price tag to be from $8 billion to $12 billion.   

Following fierce criticism from policymakers and prior to a Congressional hearing on the agency's iEHR progress, VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker and Chief Technology Officer Peter Levin submitted their resignations.

Congressman Sanford Bishop, D-Ga., and ranking member of the House Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, & Related Agencies, also expressed positive remarks toward the funding restrictions. "I'm very pleased," he said in the hearing.   

 Lots more here:

http://www.govhealthit.com/news/bipartisan-bill-would-slash-iehr-funding

What a good plan - provide a reasonable amount to start a major project - and then pay for success. If success does not come then change those charge and turf the old lot out on their ear. There is something we might learn from all this.

David.