(U.S. Senate) – U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.), Ranking Member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, released the following statement today after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) announced plans to delay the “go-live” date for the new Electronic Health Record (EHR) in Spokane, Washington.

“I’ve said all along that this electronic health record system is far too important to our veterans for VA to get wrong. Moving forward, VA must establish stable leadership to provide sufficient accountability and robust oversight of this process, while being good stewards of taxpayer dollars. I’ll be looking to VA to do right by the nine million veterans—and dedicated VA employees—who are relying on this system to seamlessly provide care.”

VA is currently undertaking a decade-long transition to bring veterans’ health records into the 21^st century by ensuring that veterans can have access to a seamless electronic health record across VA and Department of Defense health systems. The new $16 billion commercial electronic health record system will affect nine million veterans across the country.

In an effort to keep VA on target and transparent in its roll-out, Tester introduced bipartisan legislation last Congress to establish a third-party oversight Committee to help monitor the implementation of the new electronic health record system.