Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Doug Collins called on lawmakers today to provide the agency with a $3.5 billion increase in fiscal year (FY) 2026 for its Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program or risk more delays to the program’s rollout.
The VA’s total budget request for FY2026 is $441.3 billion. That includes a proposed $3.5 billion to accelerate the EHRM program, which aims to provide a smooth transition for veterans as they transition from receiving care under the Department of Defense to receiving care under the VA through a single, fully integrated EHR system.
During a hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Appropriations Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Collins said the proposed increase in funding “is so vitally important” to the program’s success.
“I can’t emphasize enough, if we do not transform this system, it hurts our community care process because our doctors cannot communicate with the community,” Collins told lawmakers.
“You’re using a system that’s costing us literally hundreds of millions of dollars that’s used nowhere else in the world except the VA,” Collins added. “So, we need to move forward on this. I do believe we have a path that is safe, that is effective, and will be cost-effective because Oracle understands that they’ve got to provide this.”
The VA is deploying the Federal EHR system at a total of 13 sites in FY2026, with the help of its contractor Oracle Health – formerly Oracle Cerner.
The new deployment plans come after the VA has spent almost two years in “reset” mode. As part of the EHRM program reset, the VA and Oracle Health paused all deployments to address user concerns.
Both Congress and the White House have supported increased funding to accelerate the EHRM program next year. President Donald Trump’s proposed FY2026 budget includes a $2.17 billion increase for the program and the House of Representatives has marked up a $2.5 billion increase for the program in FY2026.
However, as Subcommittee Chairman John Boozman, R-Ark., pointed out, “there’s a pretty good delta” between the $2.5 billion that the House has approved and the VA’s requested $3.5 billion.
“If you wind up with a billion dollars less, what’s that going to do as far as implementation, site selection, [and] potential cost overrun in the future?” Sen. Boozman asked the secretary.
“It could slow it down, as it has now,” Collins replied. “We’ve already wasted billions of dollars on this project to start with, anything going further would just exasperate that problem.”
“We’ve wasted billions of dollars, and we’ve had six sites open,” Collins added. “So, again, we want to continue to make it happen, but to do that, we need to finish the job because there’s not an easy fix to just say, ‘Okay, we’re not going to do this, we’re going to do that.’ There’s no easy fix here at this point, but I think we’ve got a good path moving forward.”
VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence said in a LinkedIn post last week that the VA is “currently up and running with deployment activities at 11 sites across Michigan, Southern Ohio, and Indiana going live in 2026.”According to Lawrence, the agency also plans to begin deployment activities at its last two sites for 2026 – Cleveland and Anchorage – this month.
Lawrence, who is the VA official tasked with overseeing the EHRM program, said that it is “a no-fail mission” to deliver the new EHR system at every VA medical center by 2031.