Officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), Government Accountability Office (GAO), and VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) told lawmakers on Monday afternoon that it will be “impossible” to complete the VA’s Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program on its current timeline.
The VA’s current contract for the EHRM program is set to expire in May 2028. However, the agency has only deployed the new EHR system to six out of the 164 VA medical centers.
The EHRM program is currently in the middle of a “reset” while the VA and its contractor Oracle Cerner focus on improvements at the six sites where the EHR system is currently deployed.
In December, the VA announced that it plans to resume the rollout of its EHRM program in mid-2026 by deploying the Federal EHR system to four Michigan facilities. This would bring the total number of sites where the EHR system is deployed to 10, with 160 to go.
Members of the House VA Technology Modernization Subcommittee questioned the contract’s accelerated deployment schedule given the program’s troubled rollout. The EHRM program has been riddled with underreported costs, deficiencies in training, and diminished employee morale.
“We need to see the master schedule. How do we get from where we are now to where it is that they want to be?” said David Case, the acting inspector general at the VA OIG.
“To really assess the viability of any acceleration, show us. Show us the schedule. Show us the details. And then everyone – Congress, VA itself, OIG, and GAO – can evaluate it and evaluate the risks,” Case said.
The VA currently does not have an up-to-date schedule for the EHRM rollout. However, Acting Program Executive Director of the EHRM Integration Office Neil Evans said the VA is committed to developing an updated implementation schedule and cost estimate for site deployments.
Yet, when asked by Chairman Tom Barrett, R-Mich., if there is any possibility of the VA completing the remaining site deployments by May 2028, Evans simply responded, “No.”
“If they deploy in 2026 to Michigan, and that’s a huge if, … you still have two years remaining on that contract with 160 sites. It’s impossible,” added Carol Harris, a director of information technology and cybersecurity at GAO. “The answer is, no, they’re not going to be able to deploy to all the sites within the remaining time of the contract.”
Case agreed, saying, “I don’t see how it could happen. I’d like to see what the plan is.”
Nevertheless, the one witness who remained open to the possibility of the VA deploying the program to all 164 sites by May 2028 was Seema Verma, the executive vice president and general manager of Oracle Health and Life Sciences.
“We’re responsible for the technology,” Verma said. “We’ve said to VA, from a technology standpoint, that may be possible … but there are other pieces of this that have to come along with the technology.”
“We would need to work with VA on that, and we’re having discussions about that, about what the timeline should be and what the schedule should be, and what are the things that need to happen to be able to accelerate,” she added.
Chairman Barret remained skeptical of Verma’s optimism, saying, “We live in the real world, we don’t live in the just hit send on the computer and it works [world].”
“I think even with acceleration, it’s impossible to expect that we can be anywhere close to that by May of 2028,” he added.
Evans said the VA is “working closely” with the Veterans Health Administration system leaders and with Oracle Cerner “to determine deployment plans beyond the Michigan sites,” but he did not offer a timeline as to when the agency will have an updated schedule.
