FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Mar. 2, 2023

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has released 138 recommended solutions to address concerns with its new electronic health record (EHR) system.

The implementation of a new EHR is one of the largest strategic projects in the history of VA. VA’s implementation of the Cerner Millennium electronic health record will create a single joint patient record between VA and Department of Defense (DoD), with the goal to create a seamless health record for Veterans from their entry into military service and then through the course of their VA care.

VA acknowledges that the progress of the new EHR has not met expectations.

In 2022, it became more and more evident that VA’s structure and processes were not optimal for successful deployments or to fix issues identified after deployments. Furthermore, it was evident that there was still much work to be done to standardize practices across VA and to continually optimize the new record for use in VA.

VA made the decision to delay deployments in July 2022, promising to dig deeper into readiness for deployments and address feedback from frontline users – resulting in the October 13 announcement that VA would delay upcoming deployments until June 2023, while the organization underwent an aggressive “assess & address” period to diagnose and fix problems.

After that announcement, VA and Veterans Health Administration (VHA) leadership established the EHR Modernization (EHRM) Sprint Project team, a collaborative, multidisciplinary, enterprise-wide team, to assess what needs to be fixed before going live again and ensure that deployments are successful going forward.

After carefully and thoughtfully assessing system concerns with the new EHR, the Sprint team focused on 30 high-priority issues and developed 138 recommendations to address these issues. They have also established new processes and groups within VHA to support rapid decision-making regarding EHRM concerns, and identified requirements that must be met before subsequent deployments or go-lives.

“This is just the beginning of reinforcing our commitment to provide a high-quality EHR system to Veterans,” said VA Under Secretary for Health Dr. Shereef Elnahal. “The purpose of the new EHR is to create a lifetime of safe, reliable, seamless care for service members and Veterans and ensure the best possible experience for VA health care personnel – and we are devoting all resources necessary to do just that.”

Some of the recommended solutions are already completed; interim solutions are in place while VA is pursuing durable solutions over the coming months.

VA will continue to work closely with Cerner to resolve issues with the system’s performance, optimize the system to maximize usability for VA health care providers, and ensure our nation’s Veterans are served by an effective records system to support their health care.