Interview transcript

Terry Gerton The Office of Inspector General there at the U.S. Postal Service issued a recent report where you flagged excess and underutilized space across USPS facilities. First of all, tell us what initiated the study.

Joshua Bartzen Well, I will say that in terms of, there’s been an overall focus by the federal government on making sure that space is utilized all throughout agencies throughout the federal government. And with the Postal Service having the facility footprint that it has, over 34,000 facilities across the country, varying in size from pretty small post offices to larger processing plants, we figured it was a great time to start a project like this.

Terry Gerton And so as you went through it, what did you uncover about how much space is sitting idle or underutilized?

Joshua Bartzen Terry, it’s a great question. And for us, the first step that we took was try to understand what data is out there to kind of assess this network. So we went into the network and we were pleased at first when we saw that the Postal Services National Facility Database had information on fields that related to excess space or underutilized space or vacant space. So we’re like, okay, we viewed that as a good sign. However, once we started looking at some of the data that was associated and located in that system, I’ll say from an auditor’s perspective, our ears started to perk up a little, our eyes opened up a little and we’re like, okay, there seems to be some reliability, some things, outliers that we’re looking at. So then the crux of our audit, then we started really flushing out and kind of started peeling the layers of the onion back on that data. And we found some pretty concerning reliability issues.

Terry Gerton Well, let’s talk about reliability issues then, especially as it relates to the data. What did you find?

Joshua Bartzen So in terms of the data, some of the things we looked at were, they had incorrect inputs, where some of formulas like in Excel, they weren’t working as properly. They were incorrectly coded, where some space was office space, but it was coded as vacant land or some of the data was inconsistent between some of this system modules. Then we also noted that in certain instances, the data wasn’t even in there. So one of the key findings we had was that over 63% of the properties have not had a kind of data reliability assessment performed, on record. So that was concerning to us because at some point, going out collecting this data and then checking out it periodically, just that lack of data was very concerning for us.

Terry Gerton Whose job is it to keep the data up to date?

Joshua Bartzen Terry, it’s a great question. And honestly, that was kind of one of the things we’re talking with Postal about. Obviously, the Postal Service is a very big organization. There’s different functions. We were dealing primarily with the facilities group, but also the retail group, the processing group, the delivery group, they all have input into this because they’re aware of the day-to-day operations. We kind of attributed it to facilities because they were the kind of, as far as from our view, they were the overseers of this entire facility database and what was in their postal service facilities. Folks may have a little different perspective on that, but from our perspective, that’s where we landed.

Terry Gerton What’s the impact to postal service management of not having good data about the usage of its various kinds of facilities?

Joshua Bartzen But Terry, great question. And we reported that the lack of visibility into this data really, it hinders your ability to drive financially beneficial alternatives, such as if you can repurpose the space, if you can rent it, if you dispose it. So all those types of things, we found that the data issues that we found really hindered anything going forward because at that point, it’s limiting your decision making. And we even highlighted a couple examples in the report in terms of the COVID test kits, when they came out, at some point, you’re trying to find facilities where there can be some space where you can store them and process them, and Postal Service eventually was able to do it. But the data wasn’t as readily available because they had to go ask and kind of re-engineer it going from step one. Similarly, lately, there’s been some increases in packages at certain locations, so much so that they’ve had to put exterior tents outside to kind of store the packages while they’re waiting to be processed. So we were saying, well, this is also another opportunity where if you knew where some available space was in nearby adjacent facilities that could help you out. The third part is there’s a revenue component to this too. And I think this aligns with a lot of the other things from the federal government that we discussed earlier is that, are there ways to either rent the space or dispose of it that can save you money? And in terms of that, we saw some instances where space was coded differently and that limited your ability to rent that, potentially rent that space. So again, financial operational impacts definitely arose from the lack of quality data.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Joshua Bartzen. He’s an audit director at the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General. So we talked a little bit about the finding around insufficient or inaccurate data. What was your second finding here?

Joshua Bartzen The second finding, the second part of that finding had to do with the overall broader strategy related to excess and underutilized space. And we were curious from the Postal Service perspective, did they have a strategy for reducing it or at least for managing it? Because the one reality we do know with the Postal Service is that the operational demands vary throughout the year. Like right now it’s holiday time, so we know that there’s a lot more packages going through the network, so you know you need more space. Do you need that space maybe in the middle of January? Maybe not. But that space can be used then for maybe something else. So the network and the volume variability is what they call it in terms of workflows, ebb and flow. Just being aware of it, having that data and that overall strategy can help you manage those kind of ebbs and flows throughout the year.

Terry Gerton You also noticed that the Postal Service hadn’t been meeting its congressional reporting requirements about facility space.

Joshua Bartzen That’s correct as well. So again, the GAO has placed federal real property management on its high risk list for over 20 years. And some of that continued work decades ago resulted in the passage of one of the federal real property laws that’s out there. We found the Postal Service hadn’t been complying with some of the reporting requirements of that. The Postal service said they weren’t aware of it. And again, they thought maybe it was a one-time reporting requirement, but again, with the move towards a federal government making more and more attention on this we thought it was, you know, us noting that compliance issue, and the Postal Service has agreed with that recommendation related to that compliance.

Terry Gerton You made a total of seven recommendations. How did the Postal Service respond across the board?

Joshua Bartzen I’ll say mixed, they agreed with two of them, and they disagreed with five. And in terms of the five that they disagreed with, most of those all pertain to the data or the strategy issues that we had discussed earlier. From our perspective, the Postal Service had some comments in there about who’s going to be responsible and who should be — and Terry, it’s funny that you mentioned who’s in charge of this — when the Post Service was talking about who is in charge this from an earlier point, Terry, there’s some difference of opinions. From our perspectives, though, At some point, we are auditors and we’re not consultants. So we’re going to tell you what to do, but we’re going to point out the issue. So we are less concerned with what entity within the Postal Service solves, corrects the issues that we brought up, but we noted for those five disagreed recommendations, we still think that they’re very important and they should be resolved.

Terry Gerton What do you think will happen now that you’ve raised awareness of this within the Postal Service? Are you seeing that they’re moving forward to take action, or what do you expect?

Joshua Bartzen We expect, at least from, I’ll go two-fold, just from the recommendation perspective, how those get handled is we have a resolution process with the Postal Service and we work to try to resolve those. So there’s some common agreement because I think collectively, between us and the Postal Service, we want these recommendations to be resolved. From a more global perspective, our report focusing on excess underutilized property is going to be one of many, I’m sure over these next couple of years, the federal focus is not going away, either by us, by GAO, by other federal stakeholders, so at some point, we’re envisioning that emphasis and that priority, the spotlight’s gonna stay. So I think it’s gonna have to be something that they’re gonna have to kind of make sure they’re managing. And to their credit, they’re creating a new data system to help manage some of these properties. Now with us, it’s becoming, hey, let’s make this a priority, make sure we’re doing this on an ongoing basis. Because again, that spotlight’s only gonna shine brighter.

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Interview transcript:

 

Terry Gerton Your office has recently published the results of your audit on the homeless screening clinical reminder process in the Veterans Health Administration. Let’s start by having you explain what that process is and how it’s supposed to work, and what difference it makes for veterans who are perhaps experiencing housing instability.

Steve Bracci First, I do want to acknowledge that VA has prioritized ending veteran homelessness. There are several programs to help veterans who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. The homeless screening clinical reminder process really is an outreach effort. During health care visits, the screening tool, which is a series of questions, is used as a proactive way for VA to identify and help veterans who are either homeless or concerned about their housing stability. And this is really important because veterans may be unaware of the programs and assistance VA has to offer, or they might be reluctant to ask for help. So the screening tool prompts clinical staff to ask veterans if they have any housing concerns that they want help with. This then allows the clinician to make a referral to a social worker who can then connect with the veteran to discuss options and provide them with the assistance they need. This is, again, really important because it can have a major impact on veterans’ housing stability and their overall health and wellbeing.

Terry Gerton And VHA has established a target timeframe for that follow-up, right? Will you walk us through that?

Steve Bracci When a veteran says they want help, they are supposed to acknowledge that and act on it within seven days, but the goal is to actually resolve and have a conversation with the veteran within 30 days. But of course they recognize that it’s important to do it as quickly as possible.

Terry Gerton And so I guess the big finding, as you did your audit, was that in cases where the medical centers used both VistA and the Oracle Health System, almost 61% of veterans didn’t receive appropriate follow-up. What exactly is going wrong there?

Steve Bracci First, I want to clarify the 61%. That only refers to the veterans we were able to review at the VistA sites. The issues we saw at the Oracle sites were more focused on the lack of reliable data, which prevented our team and actually prevents VA from being able to view veterans’ cases and make sure that they’re being followed up on. So the 61% does refer to the VistA site. I just wanted to make that clear. But to answer your question about what went wrong, there were two key breakdowns that we saw in the process. First, the staff that screened the veterans, the clinicians, did not always refer veterans to social workers. Facilities have different ways of doing this and the processes varied across the sites we reviewed. For example, some facilities do a formal referral through the electronic health record using the consult process, while others use more informal methods, like sending an instant message to social workers. That’s an example. But we did find instances where these referrals just weren’t made. And as a result, no one reached out to the veterans to provide them with the assistance they needed. So that was the first part. The second part is the staff who received the referrals didn’t always follow their local procedures for conducting outreach with respect to how they tried to reach the veterans or how many attempts they made to reach the veterans. The intent of a follow-up is for social workers to have an actual interaction with the veteran and to have a conversation, identify their needs, and then they can provide the appropriate intervention. But we found instances where there was no interaction at all and it was just a letter was sent, or an email. So there was no way to ensure that the veterans’ needs were actually being met.

Terry Gerton Homeless veterans can be amongst some of the toughest folks to actually contact. They may not have a reliable mailing address. They may have a predictable phone number. What are the contact mechanisms that the referral team is supposed to use to reach them?

Steve Bracci Whatever method possible. They try to reach them using a telephone number. They try email. They try text messages. I think that’s not something we really touched on too much in our report, but it does show the importance of trying multiple times to reach a veteran before closing out that referral.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Steve Bracci. He is a deputy assistant inspector general for the Office of Audits and Evaluations at the Department of Veterans Affairs. So you mentioned the 61% with VistA cases, but you also said with the Oracle Health System, they have unreliable data. I’m interested — it seems like two different IT systems, but I’m presuming they have sort of the same SOPs across the network, regardless of what IT system they’re using. What makes the difference in terms of reliable follow-up reports, or root causes?

Steve Bracci I think it’s just a matter of how reliable that follow-up report is. We found with the VistA sites that the report was accurate as far as identifying the actual veterans who screened positive and wanted help. It was the actual follow-up part of that that was missing, whether or not the veteran had actually been reached and whether or not the follow-up had been completed. So that was the piece that was missing with the VistA sites. With the Oracle sites, we just found that it wasn’t accurate at all. The actual report was somewhat unusable with identifying whether or not veterans had actually screened positive and then any sort of follow-up had been done. So, that was a distinction there.

Terry Gerton So you’ve got really two fundamentally different, systemic problems. Talk us through your recommendations. How do you want VA to tackle this issue?

Steve Bracci That’s a challenge for VA is when you have two systems — anytime you have IT systems and there need to be updates, that is a challenge. I think it’s just a matter of doing what they need to do to make sure that the systems are accurately capturing the data and reporting the veterans who need help so that that follow-up can be taken.

Terry Gerton How did VA respond to these recommendations, and who’s responsible for fixing the problem?

Steve Bracci I do want to acknowledge that VA concurred with our recommendations and they developed a responsive action plan for each one. So that’s important. Carrying out the action plans will require significant effort because not only are we dealing with two different systems, but we’re dealing with many VA medical facilities and each facility can do things a little bit differently. So identifying what works and taking steps to standardize that process across the system will take some effort. So that’s an important piece. Like I said, the recommendation about ensuring reliable reports could require additional coordination because we are dealing with VistA sites and Oracle sites, and it will require significant communication and collaboration across program offices and VA stakeholders to get the reports where they need to be. So ultimately responsible, you know, I mean the VA secretary is ultimately responsible for everything within VA. But you have many different program offices that are relevant in this case, and you have many different VA leaders also.

Terry Gerton Does VA have, say, a task force lead for this project?

Steve Bracci Not that I’m aware of.

Terry Gerton Let’s assume that they figure out how they’re going to orchestrate all of those different pieces that need to respond to this. What do you want veterans to know about how this might change their interaction or their service when they’re screened for homelessness or housing insecurity?

Steve Bracci I want veterans to know that they can expect to see improvements to the process. That’s why the OIG is so important: Our oversight focuses on topics and programs and services that are important to veterans. Our team does a really good job. When we conduct an audit, our team does really good job communicating with the different program offices and with VA leadership throughout the project. So when our report is issued, it doesn’t come as a surprise. So that communication, I think, is really important and it gives VA the opportunity to start making improvements and corrective actions immediately. And we’ve found that that is the case, that they take those meetings and they take our findings and our recommendations seriously. So I want veterans to know that. And, you know, I think VA as part of their response to our report, they have planned corrective actions that should be implemented by August of 2026. So if they follow through and they take action and they complete those plans, then veterans will see improvements to this process.

The post Recent VA audit finds major gaps in homeless screening, prevention first appeared on Federal News Network.

Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton Your office recently took a closer look at how EPA oversees state and local air monitoring schedules. I’m wondering, was there a specific concern or a trend that raised the alarm with you?

Paul Bergstrand We came across a study from 2021 that had some analysis showing that there was a difference in pollution levels when air monitors were off compared to when they were on, and this interests us in several ways. So just to be clear, it is completely normal for monitors to be off. It happens because monitors have a schedule where they’re designed to be off or where there is some kind of technical difficulty that they’re correcting. But what interested us is the fact that there was a difference between when they were on and off in terms of pollution levels. They should be the same. And so we wanted to take a closer look for ourselves to see how the EPA is overseeing this issue and if they were doing anything to fix it.

Terry Gerton You looked at thousands of monitoring sites. What did you discover about the trends once you dug into the data?

Paul Bergstrand We use satellite and model data as alternatives to data from regulatory air monitors to compare air quality when monitoring sites are off and when they’re on. And we found that for a fine particulate matter, which was the focus of our evaluation, it amounted to an average increase of 4% for monitors that operate on daily schedule and 9% for sites that operate in one every three days. And then separately, we found that 35.7% of intermittent modelers had worse air quality on average when they were offline.

Terry Gerton What difference does that make for public health?

Paul Bergstrand Well, importantly, the EPA sets standards for air quality, and if the standards aren’t met, then the area is in non-attainment. And that means that there can be harmful cardiovascular effects, reduce visibility, contribute to water acidification. And so poor data quality means that some areas that should be in non-attainment might not be designated correctly.

Terry Gerton There’s an interesting catch-22 here around transparency. The EPA publishes the monitoring schedule online, which we would think would be good, and people can know about that, but it creates some perverse incentives for the regulated agencies. Talk us through how that works.

Paul Bergstrand Yes, it has been their regular practice to publish those schedules. But I want to note that our analysis did not indicate any malicious behavior. But it is a concern that someone could take advantage of that scheduling to choose to conduct maintenance and shut down a monitor when they know there will be increased ambient air pollution. So it was a concern of ours and the EPA saw the concern and they took action actually during our work and decided not to publish the 2025 schedule. And they’ve agreed to continue not to publish the schedule.

Terry Gerton Is that the best solution here? Are there other factors that you might consider or recommend?

Paul Bergstrand Well, in addition to that, we’ve asked them to do some more data analysis during their quality control checks of state and local data. And this would mean using some of the techniques we had in our report that they could replicate and improve upon to come up with their own analysis to look for data that might be poor or missing.

Terry Gerton You also flag that local agencies may have incentives to under-report pollution. So again, we have some mixed messages kind of happening here. What drives those incentives?

Paul Bergstrand Again, we did not identify any malicious behavior, but as you say, there are incentives. If the EPA does designate a state as a non-attainment, there are expensive controls they have to put in place. So there is that incentive to try and hide the pollution, so to speak, so they can eliminate the data point basically from the data the EPA is collecting. But it also could be completely normal that the data points are missing, and that’s why we’re suggesting that the EPA do its own analysis.

Terry Gerton I’m speaking with Paul Bergstrand. He is Assistant Inspector General, Office of Special Review and Evaluation for the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of the Inspector General. Does EPA have the capacity and the tools to strengthen the oversight in that way that you were just recommending?

Paul Bergstrand We think they do. They can use similar or improved statistical methods using these alternative satellite data and modeling to help the quality control checks. That’s the way.

Terry Gerton Are they using those tools now?

Paul Bergstrand I can’t speak to what they’re doing now, whether they are or not, but we know they’ve done it in the past. They’ve done in 2022, where they looked at missing air pollution data from 2002 to 2018.

Terry Gerton So you mentioned that EPA was taking action to address some of your concerns even as the evaluation was going on. Are there further recommendations that you’ve made that you hope the EPA takes action on?

Paul Bergstrand Yes, I mean, they’ve agreed to both of our recommendations. And that second recommendation is that they incorporate some of these analyses into really spot-checking. And what’s important is that they can improve upon what we did to identify pollution that’s under-reported.

Terry Gerton Are there things that communities should be doing themselves to maybe fill in gaps where the EPA isn’t monitoring or just get better data out to their citizens?

Paul Bergstrand I don’t, we didn’t look at that aspect in our report, but it’s a very interesting one. And I know there are maybe some grant programs or programs to get local air monitors, but in my experience, and I’m not speaking from the body of this report here, but in my experience, those are not used to do to collect regulatory data. So I’m quite sure on how to connect those dots from maybe your citizen-scientist using an air monitor to the data being used by the EPA.

Terry Gerton We’ve done a quick overview of your report and its findings and recommendations, but one of the things I want to point out to folks is that this information is really accessible. You’ve done an interesting job of making it available through what’s called a story map. Tell us about how EPA is using that kind of a tool to get this kind of information out.

Paul Bergstrand Yes, we wanted to be innovative in the way we’re portraying this complex status so it’s more accessible. And a story map is a web-friendly format where you can scroll at your leisure to look at dynamic information, graphics, maps. Just another way to present the information to the audience that we think has a lot of possibilities.

Terry Gerton So I don’t have to print off 100-page paper and put it under my pillow so I can absorb it while I sleep. This is very cool. Are you using it in other reports?

Paul Bergstrand We hope to be. This was our first one and it was sort of a pilot project. We are definitely going to be looking forward to more opportunities to use it.

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Interview transcript:

Terry Gerton You are doing important work, and I want to talk about this program specifically, the All of Us Research Program at NIH. Tell us what that’s all about.

Charles Summers NIH has the goal of enrolling a million-plus Americans into a research program that is based around genetics and precision medicine. So it’s really the future of medicine, really where things are headed. Instead of treating you based on age or race or any of those things, they would treat you based on genetics. So, if this medicine is specifically for you, it would help you better than just a guess that we get on some things. That’s the overall goal of what NIH wants to do with this research data and research outputs.

Terry Gerton A million people, that’s a lot of folks. And genetic information is pretty personal. What is going on in terms of being able to protect participant data?

Charles Summers For us at the OIG, definitely that’s one of our highest and most important things, protecting the data and securing the data and just lending a hand as far as oversight in pointing where there are places to make improvements or recommendations to improve and secure data to requirements that are out there, as well as if we see something that just doesn’t seem right. So that’s our main goal is to protect that data, because it’s not just their data. It’s our data and it’s our parents’ data and its American data.

Terry Gerton What prompted you then to look at the data protection processes in this research program? Was there a red flag or something that happened?

Charles Summers We’ve done work at NIH since I’ve been working here. We go through risks and things like that, so the All of Us program with genomic data, the Office and National Council has said that this is a national security concern. At NIH we’ve done some work here in the past with the All of Us program, so we checked up on some of those findings. There’s also persistent cybersecurity and national security threats that have increased in challenges across the board, as far as technology goes and those vectors that NIH must lock down to protect this data. So all of those combined, it’s critical operations and programs that we feel are everybody’s concern, as well as partnering with HHS as far as how we’re going to protect the program as a whole.

Terry Gerton It seems like if you’re going to get a million people to volunteer, one of the core guarantees is that their data be protected. What did you find as you got into the audit?

Charles Summers Absolutely, and I do want to emphasize what you said. It is core to the program because if you lose that trust, less people are going to join. Currently, NIH says they have over 600,000 participants already in the program enrolled. The goal is a million, but that’s where they are currently, over 600,000 already enrolled. Some of the key cybersecurity gaps that we found there were inadequate access controls allowed access of the systems from abroad, which was employees. It’s not just somebody trying to get access, but the employees could access that data from abroad. We also found that the system permitted the research participants to download data, even though policies and procedures restricted that and did not allow for that. In both of those access controls, we like to say it’s kind of like there was warning banners that pop up to say, “hey, you can’t do this.” It’s kind of like a door with a scary sign on it that says, “hey, don’t go in here.” But the door is unlocked and you can go through it. So you could close those and go ahead and access this data and download some of this data. And that’s not what we normally would see. We would want to block it, and if there was a need for it, then you would go through the proper procedures to get it, to open those for you. And then the last two things that we found was NIH had failed to inform the Data Research Center, which was the awardee of this that the data for them, they didn’t inform them of the national security concerns around genomic data. So when that Data Research Center awardee is setting up the system and going through checks and balances on security controls, they set it to a certain level based on risk in which they do the risk assessments. But NIH didn’t give them that key piece of information which could have changed the level that maybe that security should be; actually maybe it should be up another notch. So that wasn’t factored in when they were doing risk assessments. Lastly, we found that the Data Research Center was not remediating findings that they find themselves as well as something that may come up from an audit, or something like that, in the time requirements that align with the federal requirements and that were in the contract. So they had some different timeframes … in the system security plan, so those were in opposition of what they had already agreed to as far as the contract.

Terry Gerton You mentioned as you walked through those findings that the genomic database is managed by a contractor, DRC. Is that a normal thing for these kinds of research projects and what does that say to you about the need for better oversight between HHS, NIH and the contractor?

Charles Summers NIH does have the responsibility for oversight for all their contractors, and that is very typical for this type of program in all of these large op-divs. Throughout HHS we leverage contractors and grantees and things like that. The need for so much expertise in these areas, a lot of times that is where you have to go to get that much expertise because you’re needing large numbers of people. So it is very much NIH’s responsibility to have that in the contracts as well as the oversight to ensure that the proper security levels are being maintained. And I think that’s noted in some of the findings. For instance, the finding of not providing them the information that genomic data is of national security concerns — so that would factor into the risk assessment, which is part of the agreement for the DRC to complete. Without that complete information, things may be not at the correct level. Definitely the burden is on NIH for that oversight and ensuring that is taking place.

Terry Gerton So, you made five recommendations in this report. Are any of them, do you think, particularly urgent, and what are you hoping to see NIH do quickly to respond?

Charles Summers We don’t normally rank these findings, but our access controls tend to drift to the top because that is the gate to getting access in the system and restricting access to people you don’t want in the systems. For instance, the first recommendation was to enforce the restrictions for remote users. Very important to us as we have certain countries of concern … so we want to ensure if people are there, we’re using proper security and you have proper approvals. That was one of one of our findings as well. Also blocking unauthorized downloads of data. So both of those around access control, very high, as well as remitting findings timely, because those are weaknesses that you know are there. Timeframes to remediate those, you want them to be as short as possible to close those windows of known vulnerabilities that adversaries may use to try to gain access to the system. NIH did reply to us and respond, very acceptable and concurred with those findings as we describe it. And they have already taken some actions on all these findings, and part of our tracking system is where they’re at, and we have timeframes and they report, here’s where we’re at, here’s what we’re going to do next. That goes back and forth until the completion so we ensure that those are completed.

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The Department of Veterans Affairs is embarking on major changes next year. It’s looking to get the rocky rollout of a new Electronic Health Record back on track. VA medical facilities already using the system have been beset with problems for years.

Meanwhile, the VA is planning to roll out the biggest reorganization of its health care operations in decades. Here’s a look ahead at VA’s plans for 2026.

VA EHR next steps

VA is planning for its new EHR from Oracle-Cerner to go live at 13 sites in 2026 — starting with four sites in Michigan in April 2026.

Dr. Neil Evans, acting program executive director of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office, told the technology modernization subcommittee of the House VA Committee that, based on lessons learned from previous go-lives, multiple sites will go live “simultaneously in each deployment wave.”

“This approach allows us to scale up the number of deployments, enhance efficiencies and improve the sharing of best practices within and between markets,” Evans said in a Dec. 15 hearing.

Carol Harris, the director of IT and cybersecurity issues at the Government Accountability Office, told lawmakers it would be “very risky” for VA to plan for simultaneous EHR go-lives.

“It’s going to take a tremendous amount of resources that I’m not quite sure is sustainable for multiple sites at once,” Harris said.

Status of EHR rollout so far

VA’s new EHR is currently running at six sites. Full deployment would bring the EHR to 170 sites. According to Evans, the department currently expects to complete the deployment as soon as 2031.

The VA has been in a “reset” period since April 2023, and paused new go lives until the department addresses persistent outages and usability issues reported by VA medical staff at sites already using the new EHR.

A GAO report in March found that only 13% of VA staff using the new Oracle-Cerner EHR believed that the modernized system made VA as efficient as possible, and 58% of users believed the new system increased patient safety risks.

Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), chairman of the technology modernization subcommittee, said the project’s lifecycle cost has grown to about $37 billion.

“This timeline is locked in, and the countdown is on. But the question remains: When the switch is flipped in April, will the system deliver, and will it do what we need it to do? Are we going to run into snags like we have in the past? For millions of veterans relying on VA hospitals and staff supporting them, this is not something that is theoretical. It’s real. It’s happening and we have to do it right,” Barrett said.

Subcommittee ranking member Nikki Budzinski (D-Ill.) said what she has heard from VA and Oracle this year “has not convinced me that VA is ready for launch at 13 facilities in 2026.”

“I have raised many questions with VA and Oracle. But the answers do not give me confidence. In fact, I worry that we are spending billions of dollars while simultaneously setting this program, particularly the six sites that are already live, up for failure,” Budzinski said.

Reaction from the Senate

Senate Democrats are also wary about VA’s EHR rollout plans. In a letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins, Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) said they have “serious concerns” that EHR problems flagged by GAO and the VA inspector general’s office have not been fully addressed

“While we should always strive to innovate and improve the quality of care for veterans, in practice, the rollout of EHRM has been so problematic that it created life-threatening problems and ongoing upheaval for veterans’ ability to get the health care they need,” they wrote.

New VHA leader & VA reorganization plans

Last week, the Senate confirmed John Bartrum, a former senior advisor to Collins, will serve as VA’s under secretary for health.

Bartrum, a combat veteran with more than 40 years of active-duty and reserve military service, previously oversaw policy and funding at the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The VA earlier this week announced its intent to reorganize the Veterans Health Administration.

Collins said in a statement that VHA’s current leadership structure “is riddled with redundancies that slow decision making, sow confusion and create competing priorities.”

VA says the changes aren’t expected to result in a significant change in overall staffing levels. But the Washington Post first reported that the VA no longer plans to fill tens of thousands of vacant health care positions.

The VA says it’s briefed lawmakers on the reorganization, and that implementation will take place over the next 18-24 months.

Rather than pursue a reduction in force of more than 80,000 employees, as it had considered earlier this year, the VA shed more than 30,000 positions through attrition in fiscal 2025.

“The department’s history shows that adding more employees to the system doesn’t automatically equal better results,” Collins told lawmakers in May.

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