The Department of Veterans Affairs will complete the deployment of the Federal Electronic Health Record system at an additional nine medical facilities in 2026, bringing the total to go live to 13 next year.
In addition, VA also expects to complete the deployment of EHR at all its medical facilities as early as 2031, it said in a recent release.
“America’s veterans deserve a medical records system that’s integrated across all VA and DOD components, and that is exactly what we will deliver. We can and will move faster on this important priority,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. “But we’re going to listen to our doctors, nurses and vendor partners along the way in order to ensure patient safety, quality and customer service.”
Cerner, then Oracle Health, and VA contracted in 2018 to integrate the Department of Defense’s health records system with VA’s. The effort to integrate the systems has faced several hurdles along the way to full implementation, including outages, issues with patient scheduling and prescription management. According to a review by the VA Office of Inspector General, 149 patients were impacted by issues related to the rollout at one facility.
The integration was paused in 2023 to allow for upgrades. A recently released Government Accountability Office report notes that while improvements have been made, VA has yet to update either cost estimates or a rollout schedule for the effort.
The nine additional facilities will be announced later this year following planning sessions among officials from VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Office, regional and local VA medical leaders, VA clinicians, and EHR vendor Oracle Health, according to VA.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.