Questions arise about a $600+ million contract between Epic Systems Corp. and the VA

A contract between Epic Systems Corp. and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs -- worth more than $600 million -- could be in jeopardy now that the VA has chosen an Epic competitor to provide other electronic health records services.

Veterans Affairs secretary David Shulkin said Monday his agency will use the same technology as the Department of Defense is using, a system known as MHS Genesis, being developed by Cerner Corp. and Leidos.

Cerner and Leidos had beaten out a team of Epic and IBM in 2015 for that hotly contested Defense Department contract, which is worth $4.3 billion over 10 years.

Epic was not a contender for providing the main electronic health records for the VA, announced Monday. The agency had also considered updating its own internally developed records system, known as Vista, and did not seek outside bids.

Read more: http://host.madison.com/wsj/business/questions-arise-about-a-million-contract-between-epic-systems-corp/article_6b8fb4df-0aac-5ad2-a825-f5ea5919d47d.html