VA readies to restart EHR deployments in 2026, despite lingering lawmaker unease

The Department of Veterans Affairs is only months away from restarting deployments of its new Oracle Health electronic health record system, and officials from the agency and company say they have smoothed out many of the problems that have plagued the modernization project.

With rollouts of the new EHR system set to resume after a long hiatus, 2026 will be a make-or-break year for the expansive and costly effort. But lawmakers and watchdog officials say they remain cautious as the medical facility go-live dates draw near.

Exiting the project’s deployment pause

VA first signed a $10 billion contract — later revised to over $16 billion — with Cerner in May 2018 to modernize its legacy health record system and to make it interoperable with the Defense Department’s new health record, which was also provided by Cerner. Oracle later acquired Cerner in 2022 and rebranded the new unit as Oracle Health ...