The Department of Veterans Affairs is still committed to its Oracle Health EHR rollout despite the need for additional improvements, The Spokesman-Review reported April 29.
"Right now, we don't have another third health care record that we're looking at," Deputy Veterans Affairs Secretary Tanya Bradsher said in a meeting at a VA hospital. "We need to have an integrated health care record that we can move to right now. We're still focused on Oracle Health. And we're going to put our resources in on making sure that we have the health care record that our clinicians need and deserve, and so we have some work to do."
Ms. Bradsher visited the Spokane, Wash.-based Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center where the Oracle Health EHR system went live in 2020. According to Ms. Bradsher, the system is improving but is still experiencing some downtime.
"What we learned is that they're seeing some down times that we're not seeing in headquarters. So we want to really investigate and figure out what those are," she said. "That's very helpful. We're hearing some improvements, but we still hear just some of the frustrations."
Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center is one of five VA facilities to implement the new EHR system. The current rollout has been paused due to issues with the Oracle system. The VA is hoping to resume the EHR rollout in 2025 if it can improve the system at the VA facilities currently using it.