In an interview with Nextgov/FCW, Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Ill. — the ranking member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Technology Modernization Subcommittee — said successfully rolling out the EHR system remains “the most important goal” of the panel, even as she noted that “there have been a number of issues” with the project.
VA initially signed a $10 billion contract — which was later revised to over $16 billion — with Cerner in May 2018 to modernize its legacy health record system and make it interoperable with the Pentagon’s new health record, which was also provided by Cerner. Oracle later acquired Cerner in 2022.
VA, however, has deployed the EHR software at just six of its 170 medical centers since 2020, largely as a result of patient safety concerns, technical issues and usability challenges associated with the new system. VA paused most deployments of the EHR system in April 2023 as part of a “reset” to address problems at the facilities where the software had been deployed.
The department announced in December that it was moving out of the operational pause and planned to roll out the new EHR software at a total of four medical sites in mid-2026. VA Secretary Doug Collins — who said during his confirmation hearing that “there's no reason in the world we cannot get this [modernization project] done” — subsequently announced in March that VA planned to deploy the software at nine additional medical facilities next year, bringing the total to 13 sites.
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