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VA warns 41,500 veterans that EHR deployment issues may have affected care — report

The Department of Veterans Affairs has warned 41,500 veterans that their care may have been affected by delays in the rollout of the Oracle Cerner electronic health records system.

In an interview with The Spokesman-Review newspaper, VA Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal on Oct. 12 said the department’s findings from a recent review led it to send letters to veterans whose medications, appointments, referrals or test results may have been delayed due to problems with the system.

“Unfortunately, we discovered that safety concerns were voluminous enough and prevalent enough throughout the system that we had to disclose to 41,500 veterans that their care may have been impacted as a result of the system’s deployment as it is currently configured,” Elnahal told the newspaper.

Veterans who may have been affected were identified through a review by VA patient safety experts and through data provided by Oracle Cerner on all patients enrolled at hospitals and clinics where the system has been deployed.

According to the report, the VA began mailing letters on Oct. 12 and all affected veterans are expected to receive them within about two weeks.

The group of about 41,500 patients represents a minority of the veterans enrolled for care at facilities using the new system.

News of the letters comes as the VA Thursday announced that it would delay all future deployments of the electronic health record system until June next year.

In a statement, the department said it was pushing back the rollout to “address challenges with the system and make sure it is functioning optimally for veterans and for VA health care personnel.”

Earlier this year, a leaked draft report by the VA Office of Inspector General revealed nearly 150 cases of harm linked to the Oracle Cerner system, and shortly after VA Secretary Denis McDonough hit pause on deployments planned for the summer of 2022 in Seattle, Tacoma and Boise.

FDIC appoints Chezian Sivagnanam to IT architecture leadership role

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. has named Chezian Sivagnanam as section chief for IT architecture and design within the agency’s chief information officer organization.

Elanchezhian started work at FDIC on Sept. 12. He joined the agency from the National Science Foundation, where for 13 years he was chief enterprise architect — the equivalent of a chief technology officer at other agencies.

The architecture and design section at FDIC sits within the enterprise strategy branch of the department’s chief information officer organization.

Chezian adds more than 25 years of IT experience including leading large-scale digital transformations across federal government.

“In his free time, Chezian loves playing sports and spends time with his adorable dog, Sneakers,” reads the Chief Information Officer Organization’s hiring announcement. “Please welcome Chezian to the FDIC and CIOO family!”

Chezian co-chairs the Federal CIO Council‘s Innovation Committee, which makes recommendations on trustworthy artificial intelligence, zero-trust security architectures and cloud computing.

At NSF, Chezian advised the CIO and coordinated the agency’s IT strategy and architecture. Prior to that he worked in the private sector including at Deloitte Consulting.

Chezian earned his bachelor of electrical and electronics engineering degree from Anna University’s College of Engineering in India.

NIST considers launching ‘supersized’ semiconductor manufacturing institute

The National Institute of Standards and Technology is considering whether to launch a single, “supersized” semiconductor manufacturing institute or a series of specialized ones, according to a Federal Register notice posted Thursday.

NIST issued the request for information (RFI) seeking public input on the design of any Manufacturing USA institute it launches to strengthen the semiconductor and microelectronics innovation ecosystem by addressing design, fabrication, testing, assembly and packaging needs.

Semiconductors are fundamental to emerging technologies the U.S. hopes to become the global market leader in, like artificial intelligence and quantum computing, but it accounted for a mere 11% of global fabrication capacity in 2019 — down from 37% in 1990. That’s problematic because the effects of a growing, global semiconductor shortage began to be felt by U.S. industries like the automotive sector in 2020, and Taiwan, South Korea and increasingly foreign competitor China dominate manufacturing.

Manufacturing USA’s 16 institutes are public-private partnerships aimed at improving the supply chains of distinct technologies, and they’re typically funded for an initial five years at between $150 million and $600 million. The CHIPS and Science Act signed into law in August set aside $11 billion for semiconductor research and development (R&D) and infrastructure investments, including up to three Manufacturing USA institutes to be established by NIST.

“The entire R&D program is intended to be interconnected and comprehensive, with no gaps and minimal redundancy, to position the United States for technology and workforce leadership in the semiconductor and microelectronics sector for the long-term prosperity of the nation,” reads the notice.

Outside the question of what business model the proposed semiconductor institutes should rely on, the agency wants to know what role the institutes should play:

Other considerations include industry and academia membership requirements, as well as foreign involvement, and financing; the law requires equal federal and non-federal coinvestment.

NIST further asks commenters to say what any institute’s relationship with standards development bodies should be and how it can grow the microelectronics talent pipeline.

Metrics will be used to gauge an institute’s performance, but what those should be are up for debate.

“What constitutes a successful first year for a Manufacturing USA semiconductor institute?” the RFI asks. “What forms of support, and from which partners, are needed to ensure a successful first year?”

Public comments are due by 11:59 p.m. EST on Nov. 28, 2022.

Department of Veterans Affairs delays all future EHR deployments until June 2023

The Department of Veterans Affairs is set to delay all future scheduled deployments of the Oracle Cerner electronic health record system at VA hospitals until June 2023.

In a statement announcing the delay Thursday, the department said it was pushing back the rollout to “address challenges with the system and make sure it is functioning optimally for veterans and for VA health care personnel.”

The decision comes after VA Secretary Denis McDonough in July announced that the department would delay certain EHR deployments until at least January 2023 to ensure that all issues with the system are resolved before a wider rollout.

Details of the delay were first reported by The Spokesman-Review newspaper.

According to the VA, a subsequent investigation at the five hospital locations where the system is deployed identified a range of additional technical and system issues including “challenges with performance, such as latency and slowness, problems with patient scheduling, referrals, medication management and other types of medical orders.”

The Oracle Cerner EHR is currently deployed at VA facilities at Spokane and Walla Walla in Washington State, Roseburg and White City in Portland and Columbus in Ohio.

News of the delay follows a litany of reported problems with the system, including latency issues and outages.

Last week, FedScoop revealed the latest of such problems, which government sources said left EHR pharmacy services unavailable for outpatients during much of the day on Oct. 8.

Concerns over the impact of the system on patient care have been expressed by frontline medical staff, lawmakers and oversight bodies. Earlier this year, the VA’s Office of Inspector General published a trio of reports that identified major concerns about care coordination, ticketing and medication management associated with the EHR program launch.

Commenting on the decision to push back all future EHR deployments, Deputy Secretary of Veterans Affairs Donald Remy said: “Right now, the Oracle Cerner electronic health record system is not delivering for Veterans or VA health care providers — and we are holding Oracle Cerner and ourselves accountable to get this right.” 

He added: “We are delaying all future deployments of the new EHR while we fully assess performance and address every concern. Veterans and clinicians deserve a seamless, modernized health record system, and we will not rest until they get it.”

In an internal note announcing the rollout delay obtained by FedScoop, VA Under Secretary for Health Shereef Elnahal said: “Over the coming months, we will implement an “assess and address” period to correct outstanding issues with the new system – especially those that may have patient safety implications – before restarting deployments at other VA medical centers. This decision is a continuation of Secretary Denis McDonough announcement in July, when he said that we would delay EHR deployments to ensure that the system’s issues have been resolved.”

“For those of you working at our EHR sites, thank you for your unwavering support in ensuring the best systems are in place for Veterans. I had a chance to meet many of you at the Columbus VA Medical Center only weeks ago, to learn about some of these issues firsthand. The team there is extraordinary and wants to get this right. And that’s exactly what we’re going to do: get this right for the facilities already using the new EHR, and for all future deployments.

He added: “VA remains committed to building an EHR solution that will link with the Department of Defense’s health record system to create a lifetime of seamless care for service members and Veterans. That end goal is achievable if we take these necessary steps forward.”

Editor’s note: This article was updated to include details of the VA Under Secretary’s internal note.

IRS seeks tool to help automate solicitation evaluation

The IRS wants an automated tool for evaluating solicitations to improve the efficiency of its procurement teams, according to a request for information.

Vendors are encouraged to submit their technical capabilities and Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program-certified, commercial-off-the-shelf offerings — especially cloud solutions.

The IRS Office of the Chief Procurement Officer maintains three contract-writing systems: Procurement for Public Sector (PPS), Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, and Procurement Request Information System Management (PRISM) for the Treasury Department. The agency’s RFI is the latest to attempt to learn how automation might help its procurement teams adhere to the Federal Acquisition Regulation and further standardize vendor evaluation and selection.

Ideal solicitation evaluation tools will handle document management, auditing with analytics and performance metrics, and intelligent automation scoring while supporting ratings that indicate the degree to which proposals meet the customer agency’s standards with adjectives like excellent or acceptable. The IRS uses General Services Administration vehicles, governmentwide acquisition contracts and federal supply schedules to procure IT for customer agencies, and any tool would need to evaluate solicitations based on requirements within them.

The RFI further asks vendors to provide their timelines for implementing such a solution and examples of three customers receiving similar services. The deadline for submissions is Oct. 13 at 5 p.m. eastern time.

General Services Administration hit with 2 new Polaris pre-award protests

Two additional federal contractors have filed pre-award protests over the General Services Administration’s Polaris IT services governmentwide acquisition contract.

SH Synergy and VCH Partners on Friday lodged protests with the Court of Federal Claims to obtain a preliminary injunction halting the solicitation and seek relief.

It is the latest setback for the delayed IT services procurement, which was hit with a pre-award challenge in April, and since then has been held up further by issues with SAM.gov.

According to court documents, the companies want a judge to rule that the solicitation is “ambiguous, unduly restrictive, arbitrary, irrational, and contrary to law.” They seek also to permanently enjoin the performance of the award of any contract under the solicitation and for GSA to pay legal costs.

The two plaintiffs argue that the solicitation wording violates Small Business Administration (SBA) regulations by restricting the number of mentor-protégé joint ventures that can submit proposals as part of the solicitation.

They argue also in court documents that the solicitation’s past performance requirements violate SBA regulations governing the consideration of offerors’ prior experience. In addition, the two companies say the procurement’s requirement for small disadvantaged veteran-owned small businesses to also compete in the GWAC’s small business solicitation pool is unlawful.

SH and VCH in their argument to the court also contend that the agency has “arbitrarily and unlawfully” expanded how it considers the pricing of proposals.

They challenge GSA’s approach to assessing offerors, saying the agency seeks to measure proposals against itself, rather than through a comparative process.

“The Agency does not intend to evaluate offeror proposals against other offerors … the Agency intends only to evaluate offers against themselves,” the plaintiffs argue in filings.

The companies add: “The Solicitation consists of self-scoring, after which the Agency will evaluate and validate it.”

The latest challenge comes after GSA in May agreed to resolve concerns raised in a protest brought by federal contractor BD Squared. In that protest, the plaintiff also cited objections to the government agency’s scoring system for prior experience.

Since then, the Polaris solicitation process has faced other difficulties, including further delays to the bid submission process because of problems caused by the rollout of the DUNS number replacement, the Unique Entity Identifier number.

VCH Partners is an SBA mentor-protégé program joint venture comprised of IT solutions company Visual Connections as the Protégé and Harmonia Holdings Group as the mentor.

GSA declined to comment on the bid protests.

Federal judge declines to grant DOJ interim injunction in Booz Allen antitrust case

A Maryland federal judge on Tuesday declined to grant the Department of Justice an interim injunction to stop Booz Allen Hamilton’s acquisition of signals intelligence company EverWatch.

Judge Catherine Blake from the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland sided with Booz Allen and denied the DOJ’s request for a preliminary order to stop the deal.

A preliminary injunction to halt a transaction is often sought by the U.S. Government in antitrust cases with an appropriate likelihood of success and when the balance of equities is weighted in its favor.

It comes after the Justice Department in June filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland in a bid to halt Booz Allen’s proposed acquisition of EverWatch, a subsidiary of EC Defense Holdings. In its complaint, the U.S. government argued the deal would directly threaten competition for government contracts that provide operational modeling and simulation services to the National Security Agency.

Booz Allen pushed back strongly in the past few months on the DOJ’s claim that the merger hurt the federal government and is in support of the Maryland judge’s decision.

“At this time our statement is that we appreciate Judge Blake’s careful consideration of the evidence in this matter,” Jessica Klenk, director of media relations at Booz Allen Hamilton told FedScoop.

Booz Allen announced its plan to take over EverWatch in March, shortly before the NSA was scheduled to release the requests for their latest government contract needs. 

In court documents filed in June, the Department of Justice said that prior to the merger agreement, Booz Allen and EverWatch had competed head-to-head to win NSA contracts and then “Booz Allen decided to buy its only rival.”

The DOJ’s argument against the deal centered on the award of a $17 million NSA intelligence modeling and simulation contract known as Optimal Decision, details of which were first revealed in court documents filed as part of the antitrust case.

As the principal U.S. defense intelligence agency specializing in cryptology, signals intelligence and the interception of communications, NSA periodically issues such government contracts to support its signals intelligence data missions.

Later in August, Booz Allen in court documents argued that the DOJ’s antitrust concerns that the deal is anticompetitive were “imaginative,” “bizarre,” and not based in law or economics. 

Shortly after this the company put forward proposals intended to allay the DOJ’s concerns, which included signing a commitment that both companies would remain independent for up to a year.

The NSA has a Oct. 31 deadline for government contract bids and Judge Blake has asked the DOJ and Booz Allen to submit proposals for any further legal proceedings no later than 14 days after that deadline. 

The Department of Justice did not respond to a request for comment.

Treasury seeks industry input on cyber insurance market support measures

The U.S. Treasury Department is seeking feedback from industry about whether it should take steps to support the cyber insurance market.

In a request for information published on Sept. 29, the department said it is looking for views on existential risks to the marketplace and policy measures that could help address such risks.

Policy measures include the creation of a backstop program for cyber insurance risk akin to the Terrorism Risk Insurance Program, which was created after 9/11 to allow Wall Street to continue to offer property insurance policies that include coverage for damage caused by acts of terrorism.

The creation of a backstop program would entail the Treasury taking risk off insurance companies’ balance sheets to support the market. It could give the federal government greater access to insurers’ claims data including for ransomware attacks. 

Treasury’s RFI comes amid continued discussions across industry and government over how the cyber liability insurance market would respond to a systemic threat such as a major cyberattack from a nation-state that affects almost every area of the economy.

The department will collect evidence from industry through the Federal Insurance Office, which is a sub-agency that advises Treasury and other government agencies on matters relating to insurance and reinsurance.

“In order to inform the FIO’s future work and the joint assessment, FIO is seeking comments from the public on questions related to cyber insurance and catastrophic cyber incidents,” Treasury said in its RFI.

Last month, Lloyd’s of London, which is a specialist insurance marketplace that provides cyber insurance policies to companies around the world, introduced an exclusion that means its cyber coverage will no longer extend to cyber claims arising from acts of war or cyberattacks launched by nation-states.

The volume of cyber premiums written by insurance companies increased by 75% year-on-year to $4.8 billion in 2021, according to ratings agency A.M. Best. In a June report, the agency noted that the number of reported claims in the U.S. cyber market had swelled to nearly 26,000 during 2021, up from 22,000 in the prior year, and about 6,000 in 2016.

Microsoft hires Oki Mek as CISO for federal civilian sector

Microsoft hired Oki Mek as its chief information security officer for the federal civilian sector.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ first chief artificial intelligence officer, Mek departed in February after only a year in the role.

Mek oversaw the release of HHS’s first-ever AI Strategy in 2021 and the launch of its AI website earlier this year, which listed his 2022 priorities including increasing employee skills through the AI Community of Practice and having the AI Council issue guidance on ethical algorithms.

“As a veteran and a lifelong civil servant, I am privileged to be given the opportunity to continue to support the federal government and to help strengthen the nation’s cybersecurity posture,” Mek wrote on his LinkedIn page. “Thank you to everyone at Microsoft for welcoming me to the family.”

Mek spent 11-and-a-half years at HHS. Before that he worked at the Department of Energy and served in the Army National Guard.

Microsoft did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.

SAMOSA Act could increase large software providers’ monopoly powers say acquisition experts

Bipartisan Senate legislation that would compel federal agencies to provide greater transparency about software purchases could result in increased monopoly power for large government tech vendors, federal IT procurement experts have warned.

Language included in the draft Strengthening Agency Management and Oversight of Software Assets Act bill (SAMOSAA) has prompted fears that the proposed legislation could make it harder for agencies to switch away from software systems sold by some of the biggest incumbent players.

In its current form, SAMOSAA mandates agencies to negotiate better prices from tech companies through collective bargaining, and to purchase unlimited software licenses from a single software provider where possible.

Greater monopoly power within the federal government software space would likely increase cybersecurity risks and stymy innovation, software procurement experts told FedScoop.

Speaking with FedScoop, one acquisition expert who has worked on software contracts for GSA and other agencies said: “If you grant unlimited enterprise licenses to Microsoft, Oracle and other big players, then it makes it much harder for non-dominant players to get a foothold in the market. If an entire agency buys its software from a big player for some years then how will it ever decide to buy from a smaller player in the future?”

Software procurement scholar and former Director of the UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity Steve Weber also cautioned that while the legislative proposals may help the government achieve better value for money, the push to consolidate contracts could give each federal agency fewer options.

He said: “The bulk discount for the government from the SAMOSA Act is great but I’m worried about large sections of the government using the one [piece of] software and a monopoly occurring.”

Weber added: “A narrow set of software options exacerbates the single cloud and single software security vulnerability issues the government is already facing.”

Staff working for the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Peters, D-Mich., disagree with this view. They say the bill will help to save taxpayer dollars and encourage innovation in government by reducing duplicative software purchases.

FedScoop exclusively obtained details of SAMOSAA earlier this month from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, that if passed into law, would require government departments to purchase unlimited software contracts and require greater software interoperability from services they procure from Big Tech companies.

SAMOSAA passed the Senate HSGAC committee last week and is expected to get a full Senate vote in the coming months. 

In sum, IT acquisition experts speaking with FedScoop gave a varied picture of the benefits and potential challenges for federal agency technology leaders posed by the legislation. Here are some of the principle strengths and weaknesses of the bill they described:

Strengths 

SAMOSAA would build upon the Megabyte Act, which was enacted in 2016, and compelled agencies to report licensing information on software contracts struck with technology companies. Since it passed into law, that legislation to a degree has increased lawmakers’ visibility of what IT services federal agencies are using and saved taxpayers more than $450 million since being signed into law.

The legislation instructs the chief information officer of each federal agency to conduct an “inventory of the agency, including software entitlements, contracts and other agreements or arrangements of the agency, and a list of the largest software entitlements separated by vendor,” the bill says in its current form.

Multiple experts told FedScoop the bill could improve cost savings by forcing agencies to conduct more comprehensive independent reviews and audits that ensure they have a clearer understanding of agency software licenses by cost and volume.

It would also direct agencies to provide shared services or other assistance capabilities to support agency enterprise license adoption, transition to open-source software, cost savings, and performance improvements, the IT acquisition specialists added.

In particular, section four of the proposed legislation directs the chief information officer of each agency “to develop a plan … to improve the performance of, or reduce unnecessary costs to, the agency, adopt enterprise license agreements across the agency.”

According to software procurement scholar Steve Weber, the bill would likely lead to short term harm of enterprise software providers like Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle and others because the federal government would no longer be buying software it doesn’t need. However, Weber added that this short term decline in profits would greatly benefit the health of the software ecosystem in the long run for both tech companies and the government.

Weaknesses

Speaking with FedScoop, the acquisition expert who has procured software for GSA and other agencies said the legislation could be tweaked to avoid giving big software providers an advantage.

“The SAMOSA Act is a good start but we need more meat on the parts of the bill that encourage interoperability so that it’s easier for the government to switch providers in the future.” he added.

Weber added also that he was concerned that the consolidation of government agency software contracts could lead to a “mono-culture of narrowing software options that could exacerbate the single cloud single software security and vulnerability issues that exist currently.”

He said: “Interoperability is also good for the country, its citizens and technology. Locked in customers like the federal government are good for the bottom line of some companies but bad for tech, innovation and customers in long run.”

He said that Congress could add more strength and accountability to the interoperability elements of the bill to force software companies to compete on price performance, security and features, rather than choosing a software because it is too expensive or difficult to switch to an alternative provider. 

Section three of SAMOSAA would require chief information officers to audit the interoperability of each piece of software purchased by their agency as well as their agency’s efforts to improve interoperability of software assets.

“The government shouldn’t just take the easier path of more consolidation and cheaper prices right now with more problems and complications later on,” added Weber. 

An aide for Sen. Peters pushed back on criticism of the bill, saying it has received bipartisan support for the primary goals of the bill which are to save taxpayer dollars and encourage innovation in government by reducing wasteful software purchases.

The aide added that the bill is likely to improve the state of cybersecurity within federal agencies by increasing the visibility that federal Chief Information Officers have in their software purchases to ensure agencies are buying and appropriately updating the most secure software.