VA Resumes Rollout of Troubled Electronic Health Record System
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has restarted the rollout of its troubled Oracle Health electronic health record (EHR) system. The restart began in April, 2026, ending a three-year operational pause that began in April 2023 due to difficulties getting the system up and running.
VA Resumes Rollout of Troubled Electronic Health Record System
This restart happened at four Michigan-based facilities, the VA healthcare centers in Detroit, Saginaw, Ann Arbor, and Battle Creek. This move marks the end of a pause to address technical, usability, and patient safety issues common to earlier EHR deployments.
The Michigan sites are the first of 13 medical centers scheduled to transition to the new system this year. Subsequent waves are planned for June (Dayton, Chillicothe, and Cincinnati, Ohio), August (Indianapolis, Marion, and Fort Wayne, Indiana), and October (Cleveland, Ohio, and Anchorage, Alaska).
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VA Top Priority?
VA Secretary Doug Collins and Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence claim to have made Electronic Health Record modernization a top priority for the agency. Officials want us to believe that the system has been stabilized, reporting nearly two years without a system-wide outage.
Why has it taken the VA so long to address these issues? In part, federal government-imposed staffing issues are to blame, according to reporting by Federal News Network:
“VA’s EHR Modernization lost some of its staffing in the early days of the second Trump administration. Department officials told House lawmakers in February 2025 that the EHR office fired about eight employees, as part of a government-wide push to terminate probationary staff. Another 16 employees in the EHR office accepted a government-wide deferred resignation offer.”
Also complicating matters? Undersaffing is one factor, as this statement, also from Federal News Network, indicates:
“Last year, VA’s EHR office had about 250 employees, but was funded to have up to 330 total full-time staff. The department also cut ties with several companies providing EHR support work last year, as part of a mass cancellation of contracts.”
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VA Wants an Accelerated Rollout
The VA says it intends to continue an accelerated rollout, aiming to complete the transition in 170 VA medical facilities by 2031. But the track record for this electronic medical records system is poor, and it’s unclear how realistic this goal is at press time. For fiscal year 2026, Congress has directed over $3 billion toward the EHR project.
Roughly 30% of this funding is contingent on the VA meeting performance metrics and providing data to lawmakers. The VA’s electronic medical record upgrade has been troubled practically from the start. Here is a timeline of events leading up to the VA’s announcement of the restart of implementation:
- June 2017 – VA Secretary David Shulkin announces the agency will bypass a traditional bidding process to adopt the same Cerner platform as the DoD, aiming for “seamless” care between the two departments.
- May 2018 – The VA signs a $10 billion, 10-year contract with Cerner. The GAO later estimates the program’s total cost, including infrastructure and staffing, to be much higher.
- October 2020 – The system “goes live” at its first site, the Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington. Almost immediately, staff reports significant technical glitches, system slowdowns, and issues with the pharmacy module.
- 2021 – A series of reports from the VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) criticize the agency for underestimating costs and failing to address patient safety risks. Rollouts to subsequent sites are delayed.
- March – June 2022 – The system is deployed at four additional locations: Walla Walla, Washington; Columbus, Ohio; and Roseburg and White City, Oregon. During this period, an OIG investigation revealed the “Unknown Queue” issue, in which thousands of clinical orders (such as labs and referrals) disappeared into a digital dead zone, resulting in dozens of cases of patient harm.
- October 2022 – Further deployments are delayed until 2023 to focus on system stability and fixing the software.
- April 2023 – VA Secretary Denis McDonough announces a full “program reset.” All future deployments are paused indefinitely while the VA and Oracle Cerner work to address technical reliability and clinician burnout.
- May 2023 – The VA and Oracle Cerner renegotiate their contract, with stricter performance metrics and higher penalties for system downtime.
- 2024 – 2025 – The VA focuses on infrastructure upgrades and software optimization at the five existing sites while preparing for an eventual resumption.
- April 11, 2026 – The VA officially ends the three-year pause. The rollout resumes with a simultaneous launch at four facilities in Michigan: Detroit, Saginaw, Ann Arbor, and Battle Creek.
VA claims it will complete the transition across all 170 medical centers by 2031, but only time will tell whether it can.
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About the author
Editor-in-Chief Joe Wallace is a 13-year veteran of the United States Air Force and a former reporter/editor for Air Force Television News and the Pentagon Channel. His freelance work includes contract work for Motorola, VALoans.com, and Credit Karma. He is co-founder of Dim Art House in Springfield, Illinois, and spends his non-writing time as an abstract painter, independent publisher, and occasional filmmaker.
