VA Electronic Medical Record Roll Out Had to Be Delayed
Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III talked via videoconference Dec.22 with sailors aboard the USS Harry S. Truman, on a scheduled deployment in the U.S. Sixth Fleet area of operations, to wish them a happy holiday season and thank them for their service. In January, he tested positive for COVID-19. DoD photo by Lisa Ferdinando
WASHINGTON — The surge in COVID-19 cases created by the Omicron variant has caused no small amount of chaos for federal healthcare agencies, resulting in the postponement of major projects, deployment of emergency medical staff and even the infection and subsequent quarantining of agency leaders.
VA had been planning to continue the long-delayed rollout of its electronic medical record system to the VA Central Ohio Healthcare System on March 5. Due to the surge, that date has been moved to April 30.
According to VA data, the 15-county area serviced by that healthcare system was experiencing a 34.9% positivity rate at the time of the announcement on Jan. 5. Franklin County, where the Columbus VAMC is located, was experiencing a 153% increase in COVID-19 cases in the two weeks prior to the announcement. Approximately 209 employees at the facility were listed as unable to work–about double what it was the previous week and one of the largest changes in this status across all VA medical facilities.
VA leaders said they believe that adding an EHR deployment to a facility during the surge would risk significant impact to staff and patients.
“As we see the pandemic surge in the Columbus community, we need to support the medical professionals while they focus their attention on meeting the healthcare needs of their patients,” said Terry Adirim, MD, MPH, MBA, program director of the EHR Modernization Integration Office. “EHR deployment activities must be weighed against community health and can be resumed when it is appropriate.”
Austin Tested Positive
On the DoD side, the pandemic hit close to home when Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tested positive for the virus on Jan. 2. Austin requested the test after exhibiting symptoms while at home on leave. He described his symptoms as mild and quarantined himself at home in the period immediately following the diagnosis.
Two weeks after Austin’s announcement, it was revealed that Army Gen. Mark Miley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had also tested positive, as had Gen. David Berger, commandant of the Marine Corps. According to spokespeople, both planned to continue to do their jobs from quarantine.
In light of the speed with which omicron was moving through command staff, the Pentagon moved to Health Protection Condition (HPCON) Charlie on Jan. 10. DoD has five health protection conditions, from routine through Delta. According to Pentagon officials, Charlie is used when the area is experiencing sustained community transition.
Under HPCON Charlie, in-person gatherings are being canceled, and there is a restricted ability to travel and severely restricted access to the Pentagon. Masks are required at all times, except when alone in a closed office.
Currently, military officials are required to be vaccinated, but DoD officials are still debating whether to also require boosters.
“We’re still in discussions here at the Pentagon about the booster shot,” explained Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby at a press conference on Jan. 10. “There’s been no decision made about making them mandatory. … As the secretary has said many times to the force, if you’re eligible and you meet that criteria, we absolutely encourage those members of the workforce to get the booster shot. Because it really does lessen the effects if one contracts the virus.”
The following week, six teams of military medical personnel were deployed to assist overwhelmed hospitals in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, Michigan and New Mexico. The teams, totaling 120 personnel, joined an additional 400 active duty personnel who were already deployed. In addition, 15,000 members of the National Guard have been activated to assist with everything from vaccinations to clinical care.
Kirby stressed that this effort by the military to provide medical assistance to civilian hospitals is nothing like in the early days of the pandemic when DoD set up various field hospitals and went so far as to anchor the hospital ship USNS Comfort in New York Harbor, and then ended up treating very few patients.
“This is not that. This is very different,” Kirby declared in a Jan. 13 briefing. “[The newly deployed personnel] will be providing relief, triaging patients, helping to decompress overwhelmed emergency departments and freeing up healthcare providers to continue other lifesaving care,” Kirby said in a Jan. 13 briefing. “It’s not just about COVID medicine, necessarily. They’re going to be acting as a relief valve for our civilian healthcare workers.”
Kirby noted that these were only the first deployments and that additional waves would be sent out in the following weeks to address the omicron surge.
Asked how long these deployments will last, Kirby said that DoD leaders did not know.
“Nobody expects that these deployments will be open-ended and, you know, over a long period of time. But nor have we a set, finite, specific period of time on it right now.”
