Dive Brief:
- The Department of Veterans Affairs deployed the Oracle electronic health record at four hospitals over the weekend, the first VA medical centers to receive the new system in years amid an embattled rollout.
- The EHR went live at four medical centers in Michigan — VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, VA Battle Creek Medical Center, VA Detroit Healthcare System and the VA Saginaw Healthcare System — on Saturday, the department said in a Monday press release.
- The rollouts are the first of 13 planned EHR deployments this year. Four medical centers in Ohio and Kentucky are scheduled to next receive the Oracle records system in June.
Dive Insight:
The deployment of a new medical records system at the VA has become a long challenge for the department, plagued by system reliability issues, rising costs and patient safety concerns.
EHR vendor Cerner, which was later acquired by technology giant Oracle, was awarded the contract to replace the VA’s aging records system in 2018.
But technical problems have bedeviled the project, which prompted the department to largely halt all new EHR deployments in 2023. Before Monday’s announcement, only six medical centers had received the new EHR out of the VA’s 170 medical centers.
In late 2024, the department said it would begin distributing the new system to medical centers again this year, and the Trump administration has pushed to accelerate the rollout.
In a Monday press release, the VA said it had fixed “hundreds of problems” related to the initial rollout of the EHR and had eliminated bureaucracy that it claimed was slowing the project down. Additionally, it said it’s hiring 400 more workers to assist with the rollout.
“These first EHR deployments in 2026 represent real progress toward a unified electronic health record that strengthens care delivery for our patients and providers,” VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence said in a statement. “With our Michigan sites now live, we are building strong momentum as we prepare for the next wave of implementation.”
The Oracle EHR is scheduled to go live at Chillicothe VA Medical Center, Cincinnati VAMC, Cincinnati VAMC-Fort Thomas and Dayton VAMC in June.
The system will also be deployed at three medical centers in Indiana in August as well as two hospitals in Alaska and Ohio in October, the VA said.
