The Department of Veterans Affairs has finished its 2026 EHR deployments after going live with an Oracle Health EHR system at hospitals in Cleveland and Anchorage, Alaska, on Oct. 24.
The system went live at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center, the Alaska VA Healthcare System and 16 standalone clinics tied to those medical centers across Ohio and Alaska, the VA said in an Oct. 26 news release. The sites serve more than 163,000 veterans and 7,800 staff.
The go-lives bring the VA to 13 hospitals deployed in 2026 under its accelerated schedule, following rollouts in Michigan in April, southern Ohio and Kentucky in June, and Indiana in August. More than 780,000 veterans and 42,000 VA clinicians and staff nationwide now use the system.
VA Deputy Secretary Paul Lawrence, PhD, the department’s lead official on the rollout, said this year’s work “lays the groundwork for deployments in 26 hospitals in 2027.” He contrasted the 2026 pace with a nearly two-year delay under the prior administration. The VA aims to have the EHR in every facility by 2031.
The department credited the faster pace to fixing hundreds of problems tied to the initial rollout at its six original sites, moving to a standardized system rather than locally customized versions, replacing several decision-making councils with a single council that reports to top VA leaders, and hiring dozens of staff to support deployments. Dr. Lawrence also visited all 13 of this year’s sites to work directly with facility leaders.
The 2027 deployments begin in January at four facilities: Clement J. Zablocki VA Medical Center in Milwaukee; Tomah (Wis.) VA Medical Center; William S. Middleton Memorial Veterans’ Hospital in Madison, Wis.; and Oscar G. Johnson VA Medical Facility in Iron Mountain, Mich.
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