The top Democrats on the House and Senate committees overseeing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) want to know why the department increased the ceiling of its contract with Oracle Health for the agency’s Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program by nearly $17 billion.
Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ranking members of the VA committees, sent an Oct. 6 letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins asking who approved the increase. The lawmakers publicly released the letter on Oct. 13.
In August, the VA quietly raised the ceiling of its EHRM contract from nearly $10 billion to $27 billion without alerting the committees overseeing the department.
“The Committees on Veterans’ Affairs in the House and Senate have worked closely with VA since the original contract was signed. VA’s decline in transparency, particularly regarding recent contract modifications, is extremely troubling,” the lawmakers wrote.
Takano and Blumenthal are demanding that VA provide an unredacted copy of the contract modification, documentation justifying the increase, and all communications between the department and Oracle related to the contract changes by Oct. 30.
The lawmakers also want to know who ordered the redactions to the contract documents and why, as well as how VA calculated the new contract ceiling.
VA previously cited “unanticipated complexities” in deploying the Federal EHR as the reason for increasing the contract ceiling, which represents the maximum amount the department can spend under the contract.
The lawmakers said VA has yet to explain those complexities or provide documents requested by committee staff on Aug. 27 ahead of a Sept. 2 oversight hearing.
They are also requesting VA’s latest life cycle cost estimate, including a breakdown of contract, infrastructure, and program costs, and asking whether the department will commission an independent estimate of the program’s total costs.
Another concern centers on Oracle’s previous commitment to cover additional expenses associated with the EHRM program.
“Given that Oracle committed to absorbing the additional costs for the EHRM program contract, please provide an explanation for why VA is now footing these same costs?” the lawmakers asked.
During the Sept. 2 House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing, VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence said he could not explain how that commitment factored into the latest contract modification.
“I’ve got to figure out what was promised and see how our acquisition folks dealt with that,” Lawrence told lawmakers.
Additionally, Takano and Blumenthal are seeking information about VA’s decision to accelerate the deployment of the Federal EHR across its medical facilities by 2031.
Specifically, the lawmakers want to know what analysis VA conducted of elevated patient safety event reporting at facilities already using the system before accelerating deployments, and whether the department assessed how the faster rollout would affect costs.
The latest congressional inquiry follows a Sept. 2 House Veterans’ Affairs Committee hearing during which lawmakers from both parties questioned the contract increase and the reliability of VA’s EHRM cost estimates.
At that hearing, the committee voted unanimously to subpoena Oracle Executive Chairman Larry Ellison and Oracle Health CEO Mike Sicilia after the executives declined to testify at the hearing. The subpoenas, subsequently served on Sept. 14, call for Sicilia to testify on Nov. 19 and Ellison on Dec. 10.
VA resumed Federal EHR deployments in April after a nearly two-year pause and plans to complete the nationwide rollout by 2031, including 26 additional deployments scheduled for 2027.
Takano and Blumenthal are demanding that VA provide the requested documents and written responses by Oct. 30.