The VA aims to resume its Oracle Health EHR rollout before the end of fiscal year 2025, after pausing the $16 billion initiative in 2023, Nextgov reported April 11.
VA Secretary Denis McDonough told lawmakers at an April 11 hearing that the VA aims to resume the Oracle Health EHR rollout once it has addressed issues at the five medical facilities currently using it.
Since the EHR's initial deployment in 2020 at the Spokane, Wash.-based Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center, the system has been plagued by technical glitches, patient safety incidents and budget overruns. This caused the VA to pause the EHR modernization project in April 2023 so that it could work with Oracle to fix the issues.
However, according to the publication, the fiscal year 2025 budget request for the VA from the White House does not allocate any funds for the agency to resume new software deployments, marking a substantial reduction in financial support earmarked for the EHR modernization efforts.