The Veterans Administration is planning to roll out its Oracle electronic health record next year at medical facilities in five states, the agency confirmed on Monday. 

WHY IT MATTERS

The VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office has added the following nine medical facilities to go live on the Oracle Health EHR:

• Cincinnati VAMC-Fort Thomas in Fort Thomas, Kentucky
• Chillicothe VAMC in Chillicothe, Ohio
• Cincinnati VAMC in Cincinnati, Ohio
• Dayton VAMC in Dayton, Ohio
• Louis Stokes Cleveland VAMC in Cleveland, Ohio
• Fort Wayne VAMC in Fort Wayne, Indiana
• Marion VAMC in Marion, Indiana
• Richard L. Roudebush VAMC in Indianapolis, Indiana
• Alaska VA Healthcare System in Anchorage, Alaska

Previously, the agency stated it would resume deployments of the beleaguered system at four Michigan VA facilities – Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Detroit and Saginaw – bringing the total to 13. 

The agency has estimated the complete deployment of the new EHR to all medical facilities as early as 2031, based on plans to rapidly scale system deployment at the remaining 164 VA healthcare facilities that Seema Verma, Oracle Health and Oracle Life Sciences executive vice president, provided lawmakers in February.

THE LARGER TREND

The VA announced last month that it will pursue a market-based approach to site selection for new EHR deployments and will meet with regional and local VA medical leaders, VA clinicians and Oracle Health before announcing the additional locations.

“We can and will move faster on this important priority,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins in the previous announcement.

However, the VA also eliminated several EHR modernization contracts amid larger cutbacks in March. Those canceled contracts included data integrity work essential to correctly identifying patients and linking their clinical records before care is delivered under the largely defunct Veterans Health Administration’s Integrated Healthcare Transformation Program.

In 2022, anomalies in VA and Department of Defense patient identifiers resulted in failed EHR alerts to VA clinicians running the new system, resulting in veteran harm and prompting the data integrity effort.

ON THE RECORD

“We are excited to bring Veterans in Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Alaska a modern medical record system that will result in improvements to care, coordination and convenience,” said Collins in a statement. 

“The Federal EHR is integrated across all VA and Department of Defense components, enabling seamless data exchange while enhancing care, safety and customer service for patients.”

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.