THE VA WILL RELAUNCH THE ORACLE HEALTH EHR SYSTEM IN 2026: HERE'S WHAT TO EXPECT
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) plans to relaunch the Oracle Health Electronic Military Health Record (EHR) system after a four-year hiatus. It will be an important step toward improving healthcare for Veterans. This decision follows the program's original plan in 2022 because of concerns regarding patient safety and system functionality.
Four VA hospital facilities in Michigan will begin implementing the Oracle Health EHR restart in mid-2026. Better integration and safety measures are now integrated into the program to provide only the best service for our Veterans. The new system aims to improve Veterans' quality of life further by improving how the service is delivered.
Relaunching of the Oracle Health EHR
Leaders said they were certain the Oracle Health-developed system had been improved to serve Veterans and clinicians better. They reiterated that improvements would continue in advance of the relaunch.
According to Dr. Neil Evans, acting program executive director, the Department of VA is prepared to start planning for the next Federal EHR deployments in 2026. At the same time, they remain committed to the continuous improvement efforts that have been their focus for the past 18 months.
The VA entered into a deal with Cerner, which is now part of Oracle, in 2018 to create an electronic medical records system for its more than 170 medical centers. This is completely connected with the Defense Department's system, which was also created and purchased from Oracle Cerner.
Only five medical centers and their connected clinics in the Pacific Northwest and Ohio were using the program by 2022, and the VA started to announce stops and delays in further rollouts to address concerns.
Viability Concerns for the New EHR System
VA's modernization initiative has been plagued by technical difficulties, cost overruns, patient safety issues, and usability concerns ever since the new EHR system was initially implemented in 2020 at the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington. The updated EHR system from Oracle Cerner, which is also used by the DOD, is supposed to work with the new software.
VA finally stopped the EHR system's installations in April 2023 to resolve the numerous issues affecting the institutions where the new software had been implemented. At the time, just five of VA's more than 170 medical institutions had implemented the system. Afterward, the DOD and VA collaborated to establish the collaborative system at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, Illinois.
However, the VA said that it has made substantial improvements to the new program and is attempting to integrate clinician and Veteran input into its modernization efforts. According to the department, the continuous "reset period" has allowed it to improve clinician and Veteran satisfaction and trust in the program while also addressing system breakdowns at the sites utilizing the new EHR.
Concerns About VA Moving Out of Reset Phase
Lawmakers have remained concerned about the VA resuming software deployments despite the VA citing the Captain James A. Lovell EHR system rollout earlier this year as evidence of the reset's effectiveness.
The ranking member of the panel, Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, told VA officials during a July hearing of the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee that the VA might be far from ready to endorse further go-live activities. She pointed out that the Lovell rollout was the only focus of both DOD and VA and that it needed a surge of resources to be successful.
VA was considering implementing the new software at four hospital locations in FY25, according to a House Veterans' Affairs Committee staffer at the time. The Oracle Health EHR is not a system that is meant for the VA medical system and should be abandoned today. This is according to Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., a practicing physician, during a follow-up House Veterans' Affairs Committee oversight hearing in September.
Political infighting has delayed several legislative bills intended to strengthen oversight of the Oracle Health EHR deployment, despite bipartisan concerns about the VA's efforts to improve its modernization program.
The Modernization of Oracle Health EHR
Although the Institute for Defense Analyses has predicted that it will cost more than $37 billion for the VA to completely deploy the new software at all of its medical institutions, the EHR project was originally planned to take ten years and cost $16 million. Since the incoming Trump administration has already made reducing perceived government waste a top priority, the modernization initiative's future is likewise uncertain.
President-elect Donald Trump has announced the creation of an advisory body called the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by billionaire Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that will recommend federal cost-saving steps.
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