As the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) moves forward with its Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program, VA Secretary Doug Collins told lawmakers today that the program will not be impacted by the agency’s proposed workforce cuts.
In fact, Secretary Collins told members of the Senate VA Committee that the agency is “bringing in others right now” to help support the EHRM program. These new employees would help support newly confirmed VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence, who is tasked with overseeing the EHRM program.
“I’ve committed to [Lawrence] whatever help he needs to hire to bring in to make sure that our system is safe and useful for our clinicians, to make sure that they have that,” Secretary Collins said during a Tuesday hearing held by the committee. “So far, we’ve seen that actually occurring as we go forward, so I’m looking forward to it.”
The VA announced an accelerated deployment schedule for the EHRM program earlier this year. The agency plans to deploy the program to 13 VA medical facilities in 2026.
So far, the agency has only deployed the new EHR system to six out of 164 VA medical centers.
However, Collins told lawmakers that his team has streamlined processes to improve communication between the VA and contractor Oracle Health – formerly Oracle Cerner.
“What we’ve done is we’ve actually now put the onus back on Oracle to actually, you know, provide what they’re supposed to provide,” Collins said. “We’ve also cut down on our side the amount of delay that was caused that really caused the initial problems in the rollout, where we had six different locations doing six different things.”
“So, we’ve taken eight or nine committees that were all having to touch stuff before they could get back to a decision, and cut that down to one committee that then can communicate directly with Oracle to get this started,” he added.
Collins also noted that the White House’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 – which President Donald Trump released last Friday – “provides enough money to continue the EHRM.” The budget proposes a $5.4 billion funding increase for the VA, including a $2.17 billion increase for the agency’s EHRM program.
While many lawmakers raised concerns surrounding the VA’s goal to cut about 15 percent of its workforce, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., wanted to know how those cuts would affect future EHR deployments.
“The issue of employment and EHR deployments are separate,” Collins stressed. “I can’t emphasize this enough, none of the reorganization that we’re looking at deals with frontline workers or frontline employees.”
Collins also noted that the VA has included Acting Program Executive Director of the EHRM Integration Office Dr. Neil Evans in those conversations.