VA Sets Sights on 2026 for Relaunch of Oracle Cerner Electronic Health Record Rollout
The
exterior of the John D. Dingell Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center
is photographed in Detroit, Monday, June 9, 2014. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
Posted: January 3, 2025 --- Military.com | By Patricia
Kime
Published January
02, 2025 at 1:54pm ET
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) plans
to restart deployment of a new electronic health records system in 2026,
roughly 4 years after its adoption was paused amid concerns for patient safety
and practicality. The VA announced December 20th that 4 VA medical
centers in Michigan -- in Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Detroit and Saginaw -- will
receive the new Federal Electronic Health Record (EHR) System in
mid-2026.
Leaders expressed confidence that the system, developed by Oracle Health, has been upgraded to the point that it will "better serve veterans and clinicians." They added that improvements will continue in preparation for the relaunch. "VA is ready to begin planning for the next Federal EHR deployments in 2026, while at the same time remaining committed to the continuous improvement efforts that have been our focus for the past 18 months," Dr. Neil Evans, acting program Executive Director of the VA's EHRM Integration Office, said in a news release.
The
VA contracted in 2018 with Cerner, now part of Oracle, to build an electronic
medical records system for its 170-plus medical centers that would be fully
integrated with the Defense Department's system, also purchased from and
developed by Oracle Cerner. The VA introduced the system in late 2020 at
Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington, following several
delays resulting from infrastructure technology requirements and the COVID-19
pandemic.
Nearly
immediately, users of the system encountered issues with scheduling, prescriptions and
workflow, slowing further rollouts. By 2022, the program was used in
just 5 medical centers and their affiliated clinics in the Pacific Northwest
and Ohio, and the VA began announcing delays and pauses in further rollouts to
address concerns.
That
year, the VA Office of Inspector General found that the system, which was
estimated to cost $16 billion over 10 years, caused harm to at least 149 patients at one facility, including
a suicidal veteran who called the VA's crisis line after his psychiatry
referral was lost. A complete pause was announced in April 2023 to fix the
issues at the sites and integrate improvements into future rollouts.
The
upgraded system has seen a dramatic reduction in the number of systemwide
outages, according to the VA, functioning "100% of the time" for 10
of the last 16 months. More than 200 days have passed since the last outage. "We
paused deployments of the EHR for more than a year and a half to listen to
veterans and clinicians, understand the issues, and make improvements to the
system," VA Deputy Secretary Tanya Bradsher said.
"As a result of those efforts, veteran trust and system performance have improved across the board." The system was introduced to one facility during the VA's pause, a joint deployment with the Defense Department at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, Illinois. The launch marked the end of the Pentagon's adoption of the system across its medical facilities and was deemed a success by VA officials. "It's going better than anyone expected," Dr. Robert Buckley, the facility's Director, said during a House hearing in May.
"And I'm going to say that because we have phenomenal staff, we have staff that are committed to being a high-reliability health care organization, to use whatever tools we need to, um, to make sure that our patients get the very best care possible." According to the VA, the Michigan sites will begin the lengthy process required for a successful deployment in the coming weeks.
