Oracle Exec Announces Cloud Migration of Cerner EHR at VA Hearing

Oracle will shift the Cerner EHR system to a cloud data center to enhance system functionality, Mike Sicilia, Oracle executive vice president, told legislators at a Senate Veterans’ Affairs (VA) Committee hearing.

Sicilia emphasized that Oracle’s primary goal is to ensure patient safety and deliver to VA, DoD, and Coast Guard the “most modern, intuitive, performant and secure EHR in the world.”

However, he acknowledged that Oracle needs to address issues with the system, as outlined in the Senate VA Committee’s “List of 36” items sent to Donald Remy, VA deputy secretary. Sicilia said that Oracle has divided these issues into three categories: performance, design, and functionality.

The executive noted that moving the Cerner EHR system to a modern cloud data center is set to improve the system’s performance. Sicilia said that Oracle intends to complete this migration within the next 6 to 9 months.

“Candidly, we anticipate this change alone will be the single most important change we make in terms of system reliability,” he said. “It will also provide a scalable, modern platform for us to deliver the kind of future releases users have come to expect like mobility and predictive analytics.”

“Another advantage of moving the EHR system to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure is that our cloud is a second-generation cloud with security built-in from the start,” Sicilia added.

Oracle will move the EHR to a cloud data center at no extra cost to the Coast Guard, DoD, or the VA.

Sicilia said the second category of problems relates to system design, including the “unknown queue” issue outlined in a recent OIG report.

“The truth is the unknown queue was not a bug, it was a process to account for patient scheduling tasks to facilities or providers that were not recognized by the system,” he explained.

“These scheduling tasks were not lost, rather they were routed for manual review and processing,” Sicilia continued. “But the fact is the process initially resulted in far too many actions being routed to this queue and the manual review was not being completed in a timely manner.”

Sicilia said that Oracle intends to address these issues within weeks.

“Going forward, we intend to move engineering resources much closer to the end-users to create a real, collaborative solution model,” he said. “Again, these issues will be addressed at Oracle’s expense because the entire system will be better as a result, not only for the VA but for DoD and all our other customers.”

Lastly, Sicilia outlined Oracle’s plans to address system functionality issues, specifically within the pharmacy module.

“My inclination with the pharmacy module is to start over and make pharmacy an example – a showpiece – of what is to come,” Sicilia told the committee. “We now have VA’s requirements, and we intend to use a new model of collaborative development where we will bring developers out to the users and jointly define parameters, metrics, and workflows.”

“We intend to develop this as a modern, stateless web application, which simply means it is built for use in the cloud with the associated scalability and reliability you expect from popular websites today,” he added. “With this development, all the modern mobile, social, and analytical features will be built in.”

Sicilia said Oracle believes it will have a beta version of the new pharmacy module delivered within 6 to 9 months.