“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,” VA Secretary Doug Collins said in a statement. The new system “is integrated across all VA and Department of Defense components, enabling seamless data exchange while enhancing care, safety and customer service for patients.”
The system will deploy at 13 sites in 2026 total. It’s the same electronic health records system already operated by the Department of Defense.
Last year, the department said four VA sites in Michigan would go live with the new system in 2026.
Full implementation of what’s called the “Federal EHR system” at every VA facility is expected by 2031 or later.
The EHR system is software that is expected to record and store health information on all aspects of patient care.
EHR rollouts have been on hold since 2023, when the VA department paused the process to address problems with the system. But Collins has said he wants to resume movement toward electronic records.
The VA contracted in 2018 with Oracle Cerner to build an electronic medical records system for its more than 170 medical centers, a system that would be integrated with DOD records.
By May 2024, the federal EHR system, also known as MHS Genesis, was live at 3,890 locations with more than 197,200 end-users serving more than 9.5 million beneficiaries, Oracle said last year.
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Medical Center moved to MHS Genesis in 2023.
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