VA Health Records 'Improvements' Sidestep Systemic Failure
Newsweek dutifully covers the VA's ongoing efforts to update health records, presenting it as a forward-looking technological endeavor. What they omit, however, is that this decade-long IT overhaul, specifically the Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program, has been a bureaucratic black hole, costing billions of taxpayer dollars with catastrophic failures. As of last year, the VA
paused the EHRM rollout due to critical patient safety concerns and astronomical costs, admitting software bugs were causing medical record errors. Many veterans still languish on waiting lists, caught in a system that prioritizes contracts over care, as evidenced by a 2014 scandal where veterans died awaiting appointments. The VA continues to receive insufficient funding while Congress
greenlights endless military spending, like the $14 billion extra aid for Israel voted on in supplemental packages, drawing resources away from domestic needs. One might charitably call these 'changes' a perpetual motion machine of delayed promises and cost overruns. How many more 'improvements' will it take before the VA can actually provide timely, competent healthcare to the veterans it claims
to serve? Perhaps if Lockheed Martin or Raytheon were somehow involved in operating these health records, they'd get the funding and political will needed to actually function.