Change Healthcare hack delays Oracle Health VA EHR testing

The Change Healthcare cyberattack delayed testing for a new Oracle EHR at an Illinois hospital jointly operated by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense, the VA’s Office of Inspector General found.

The Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago went live in March 2024 with the new EHR, which a VA official at the time called a “critical test” for the larger Oracle Health rollout across the agency.

The VA and the EHR vendor delayed testing on an interface that links to the VA’s payment and billing system due to the February 2024 ransomware attack on the UnitedHealth Group subsidiary, until the EHR was live, according to the Sept. 3 OIG report.

“VA and Oracle Health could not conduct a localized test on the interface until it was released because Change Healthcare’s system, on which this interface relied, shut down due to a cyberattack in February 2024,” the report noted. “Senior [Electronic Health Record Modernization] Integration Office leaders said that, because of security concerns, this capability was replaced by a new system not operational until November 2024.”

OIG noted “inadequate documentation in some cases, which warrants VA’s further attention” and left it up to the VA to “determine whether additional actions should be taken.”

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