The Department of Veterans Affairs has not fully implemented most recommendations from the Government Accountability Office related to its EHR modernization program, GAO officials told Congress.
Carol Harris, GAO’s director of information technology and cybersecurity, presented the findings during testimony before the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization. The testimony summarized results from five prior GAO reports on the program, published between 2020 and 2025.
The VA launched its EHR Modernization program in 2017 to replace its legacy health IT system with an Oracle Health EHR (formerly Cerner). Since then, GAO has issued 18 recommendations addressing areas such as cost estimating, scheduling, program management, user adoption and system testing.
In a report released Dec. 15, GAO said the VA had fully implemented two recommendations and partially implemented one, while 15 remained open — including 12 designated as priority recommendations.
The VA first deployed the Oracle Health EHR in October 2020, followed by four additional deployments in 2022. In April 2023, the department paused further deployments after receiving feedback from veterans and clinicians that the system was not meeting expectations.
The pause was followed by a limited deployment at Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in North Chicago, Ill., in March 2024. In December 2024, the VA announced plans to resume deployments, beginning with four facilities in Michigan. The department plans to roll out the system at nine additional sites in 2026 and complete approximately 170 deployments nationwide by 2031.
The program’s cost and timeline have been affected by the pause and evolving deployment plans. From fiscal year 2018 through the second quarter of fiscal 2025, the VA obligated approximately $13.84 billion for the EHR modernization program. A 2022 estimate projected total life cycle costs of $49.8 billion, though GAO said the VA has not updated that estimate to reflect recent changes.
Congressional committees requested an updated cost estimate and detailed schedule by Sept. 30, 2025. As of December 2025, GAO said the VA had not provided the updated estimate and submitted only a notional schedule without sufficient supporting documentation.
GAO also said several recommendations related to change management and user experience remain open. As of December 2025, the VA had not fully implemented any of GAO’s 10 priority recommendations in those areas.
