The University of Virginia this week reportedly has settled a $47 million civil suit against GE Healthcare over what it believes was sloppy--and ultimately incomplete--development and implementation of an electronic medical record system. The case, which originally was filed in 2009, had been set to go to trial this week. When FierceHealthIT checked on Friday, the case had yet to be entered into the circuit court clerk's records.
In 1999, UVa hired IDX Systems Corporation to develop an integrated healthcare information management system, according to the Charlottesville Daily Progress. Amendments to the contract in 2002 divided the project into four phases, with the first two focusing on implementation of the records management software, and the last two focusing on billing and logistics.
After acquiring IDX in 2006, GE was tasked with hitting the milestones outlined through Phase 2 by June 2008. UVa claims it never did, and in February 2009 asked for a refund of more than $20 million. At that time, UVa also awarded a $60 million contract to Epic to perform the same tasks, according to another local report by C-Ville.com.
GE swiped back, blaming UVa for the implementation delays, and said that by going with Epic, the school "failed to perform its obligations under the agreement, breaching its contract," according to a filing obtained by the Daily Progress.
The case isn't too surprising, considering that GE Healthcare has experienced some issues since purchasing IDX. In a KLAS report from August 2010, author Kent Gale said there was a "downward trend in GE's meeting commitments" to its customers.
To learn more:
- read The Daily Progress report
- check out the C-Ville.com article