VA to Pick Up Pace of EHR Deployments, But GAO Still Raising Issues
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs says it will complete deployment of the Federal Electronic Health Record system at nine additional medical facilities, bringing the total to go live in 2026 to 13, with complete deployment of the EHR at all VA medical facilities as early as 2031.
The nine additional VA 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.
A new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report notes that the VA made numerous system improvements during the pause, but it says more can be done. For example, it hasn't updated cost estimates to consider the pause and the changes it made in that time. VA also hasn't updated the rollout schedule. Without these, VA may not be able to properly budget or know if the rollout is progressing as it should, GAO said.
VA is beginning early-stage planning to deploy the Federal EHR system to four Michigan facilities — Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Detroit, and Saginaw — in mid-2026.
The VA has said it has seen critical improvements to the EHR system during a pause in deployments announced in April 2023, which has helped the system better serve veterans and clinicians — and resulted in improved veteran trust at all sites that use the EHR.
“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,” said VA Deputy Secretary Tanya Bradsher, in a statement. “As a result of those efforts, veteran trust and system performance have improved across the board. Now, we’re ready to begin planning for new deployments in 2026 — while continuing to improve at all existing sites.”
VA said that down times have declined and that clinician and staff satisfaction with the Federal EHR has increased each year since 2022 — including increases in agreement in employee surveys with the phrases “the EHR is available when I need it” and “this EHR enables me to deliver high-quality care.”
The GAO report said that regarding user feedback, while VA’s 2024 surveys show improvement since 2022, they continue to reflect general dissatisfaction with the new system. For example, as of September 2024, 75 percent (1,247 of 1,670) of users disagreed or strongly disagreed that the new system made them as efficient as possible.
VA said it is pursuing a market-based approach to site selection for its deployments going forward. This will enable the department to scale up the number of concurrent deployments, while also enabling staff to work as efficiently as possible.
VA will adopt a standard baseline of products, workflows, and integrations aligned with subject-matter-expert recommendations. The standardized national baseline will ensure successful Federal EHR implementation, accelerate deployments, simplify decision-making, and support future optimizations.
