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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.\u00a0<\/p>\n
WHY IT MATTERS<\/strong><\/p>\n The VA\u2019s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office has added the following nine medical facilities to go live on the Oracle Health EHR:<\/p>\n Previously, the agency stated it would resume deployments of the beleaguered system at four Michigan VA facilities \u2013 Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Detroit and Saginaw \u2013 bringing the total to 13.\u00a0<\/p>\n The agency has estimated the complete deployment of the new EHR to all medical facilities as early as 2031, based on\u00a0plans to rapidly scale system deployment<\/a>\u00a0at the remaining 164 VA healthcare facilities that Seema Verma, Oracle Health and Oracle Life Sciences executive vice president, provided lawmakers\u00a0in February.<\/p>\n THE LARGER TREND<\/strong><\/p>\n The VA announced last month that it will\u00a0pursue\u00a0a market-based approach to site selection<\/a>\u00a0for new EHR deployments and will meet with regional and local VA medical leaders, VA clinicians and Oracle Health before announcing the additional locations.<\/p>\n “We can and will move faster on this important priority,” said VA Secretary Doug Collins in the previous announcement.<\/p>\n However, the\u00a0VA also eliminated several EHR modernization contracts<\/a>\u00a0amid 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.<\/p>\n In 2022, anomalies in VA and Department of Defense\u00a0patient identifiers resulted in failed EHR alerts to VA clinicians running the new system, resulting in\u00a0veteran harm<\/a>\u00a0and prompting the data integrity effort.<\/p>\n ON THE RECORD<\/strong><\/p>\n “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\u00a0statement<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.\n
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