House Veterans Affairs panel presses VA and Oracle on EHR restart, timeline and safety

The House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Technology and Modernization heard extensive testimony Wednesday on the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Electronic Health Record Modernization program and the agency’s plan to resume deployments at four Michigan facilities in mid‑2026.

The subcommittee’s chairman, Chairman Barrett, opened the hearing by saying, “VA needs to demonstrate how this system has improved and explain why this program can succeed before starting up again.” The session included witnesses from VA, Oracle Health, the Government Accountability Office and the VA Office of Inspector General, who described both progress and remaining risks.

The hearing centered on three connected problems: unresolved patient‑safety and operational issues at sites that already use the Oracle Cerner‑based federal EHR; wide disagreement and uncertainty about the program’s schedule and cost; and whether recent VA staffing reductions will affect future deployments. VA plans to restart go‑lives at Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Detroit and Saginaw, Michigan, after a reset that paused deployments in 2023.

Dr. Veil Evans, Acting Program Executive Director of the VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office, told the subcommittee that the department remains committed to “implementing modern interoperable health information technologies across the entire VA health care system.” Evans said VA used the reset to complete foundational work, including data migration into Oracle’s Health Data Intelligence environment, role standardization and performance improvements, and that the Michigan sites have been under “current state reviews” since early January.

Oracle’s Seema Verma, executive vice president and general manager for Oracle Health and Life Sciences, told the panel Oracle has made thousands of functional changes and “performed reliably without severe outages or frustrating crashes for users.” Verma said Oracle has overhauled training, migrated VA data toward Oracle Cloud hosting and is investing in further modernization and AI features; she closed her statement by saying, “Oracle stands ready and committed to getting this done on behalf of our nation’s veterans.”

Federal auditors painted a more cautious picture. David Case, Acting Inspector General for the VA OIG, said OIG reports have repeatedly found patient‑safety concerns and operational deficiencies, including medication‑management and pharmacy issues, and urged the department to finish work the OIG previously recommended. “More than half uncovered significant patient safety concerns, such as problem with medication management, pharmacy operations, and patient care coordination,” Case said.

Carol Harris, GAO’s Director of IT and Cybersecurity, told members that VA cannot rely on cost and schedule estimates now available to Congress and recommended a comprehensive, updated integrated master schedule and a new life‑cycle cost estimate. GAO highlighted lingering user dissatisfaction: about 70% of VA respondents reported they were not satisfied with the system as of September 2024, and Harris said, “these numbers are still just too low.”

Cost and schedule uncertainty was a recurring theme. Committee members cited multiple figures offered in testimony and prior reports: VA’s original projected implementation cost, an older independent estimate the chairman cited at more than $32 billion, GAO’s current range from about $16.1 billion (VA estimate) to nearly $50 billion (independent estimate), and about $12.7 billion already spent to deploy early sites. Witnesses agreed that existing estimates are outdated and that the department must produce revised estimates tied to an integrated master schedule.

Members also pressed VA on staffing and program office capacity. Dr. Evans said the EHRM integration office is authorized for about 330 positions and currently staffs about 250, and that eight probationary employees were removed during recent personnel actions while 16 staff accepted a deferred‑resignation option. Evans said the program relies not only on the integration office but on VHA, OIT, vendor partners and regional VISN staff for implementation work.

Pharmacy functionality and a software package called “3B” drew particular scrutiny. Ranking Member Nikki Budzinski said she was “concerned about the rollout of the 3 b bidirectional interface intended to fix major issues with how Oracle supports VA’s pharmacy operations,” and noted the module had just been deployed and appeared to suffer from issues also seen in earlier go‑lives. Evans said 3B was deployed over the weekend and that there were “a few small issues addressed this morning,” but added that it was too early to draw final conclusions.

Auditors pressed VA and Oracle on testing and independent verification. GAO and OIG reiterated their recommendation that VA perform an independent operational assessment (often called IV&V) to catalog real‑world system suitability and residual risks. GAO’s Harris said an IV&V is “an IT best practice” and would help VA identify end‑to‑end issues that remain.

Oracle and VA offered competing views about the best path forward. Oracle urged acceleration—arguing that longer timelines can increase program cost and that recent stability and training improvements justify moving ahead. Auditors cautioned that acceleration should be contingent on a transparent schedule, updated cost estimates, completion of prioritized configuration changes and a robust training and support plan owned by VA at the facility level.

Members repeatedly requested a near‑term delivery of an integrated master schedule that links pending configuration work and “big rock” projects to costs and deployment milestones. Dr. Evans said VA is working on such a schedule iteratively—first for Michigan and then beyond—and that he meets monthly with committee staff to review metrics.

The hearing ended without votes or formal committee actions. Members from both parties urged continued oversight and asked VA and its vendor partner to provide the promised schedule, cost estimates and evidence that patient safety and user productivity will not be compromised by future deployments.

The subcommittee record will include written statements and follow‑up requests; GAO and OIG witnesses said they will continue to audit the program. Committee members signaled they expect VA to demonstrate measurable progress on the outstanding GAO and OIG recommendations before broader rollouts beyond Michigan proceed.

Ending: The subcommittee did not set a formal new milestone in the hearing; members said they will continue monthly oversight and expect VA to deliver an integrated master schedule and updated life‑cycle cost estimate before the committee will endorse wider acceleration of the program.