The U.S. Court of Federal Claims has dismissed a lawsuit filed against the federal government that challenged the no-bid deal signed between Cerner and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for the replacement of VA’s EHR platform.
CliniComp, a California-based EHR developer, is the entity behind the filing of the mentioned law suit. The company said that the government awarded Cerner the EHR contract without the standard competition process. The EHR developer said that the decision lacked a reasonable basis and termed the decision of the federal government of choosing Cerner without any contest, “arbitrary.”
Judge Lydia Kay Griggsby, on the other hand, has already granted the motions carried forward by the VA and Cerner to dismiss the mentioned case based on legal jurisdiction. The precise opinion of the judge still remains under seal.
It was reported by a prominent news source that VA Secretary MD David Shulkin had to announce his decision of the replacement of VA’s outdated VistA EHR with the contemporary Cerner because of the urgency of the situation. He said that the department had to forgo the bidding process in order to expedite the upgrading of the current Health IT infrastructure which was gradually failing to meet the department’s needs.
In collaboration with Cerner, Shulkin swiftly defended their position against CliniComp’s lawsuit and said that the company suing them was just a minor player in the Health IT industry. He said that the EHR vendor has also not demonstrated anything that implied that its platform was proficient enough to replace their previous EHR system, VistA.
Also what raised many eyebrows was the fact that CliniComp even failed to bring forth any proofs showing that the decision of the VA was unjustified or even illegal. It has been reported that the VA is scheduled to officially close the EHR deal with Cerner in the following month.
Cerner is an American-based Health IT solutions provider. It offers quality services and software related to the medical industry. According to reliable sources, in 2015 the products of the company were being used by nearly 18,000 facilities world-wide. Cerner also boasts of having around 25,000 employees, in total.
