The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to expand its contract with Oracle Health past its current ceiling, already near $10 billion, and extend the deal by three years, FedScoop reported Aug. 12.
VA reached its contract ceiling sooner than planned due to unanticipated technical complexity and extensive site-specific customization needed for the rollout, contracting documents show. The agency expects to exhaust its remaining funding by the first quarter of fiscal year 2027.
Technical glitches, training gaps, clinical functionality errors and COVID-19-era on-site restrictions slowed the rollout, the filing shows. VA has deployed the Oracle Health EHR system to 14 sites as of July 2026, with 36 more scheduled to go live through January 2028. The remaining 120 sites cannot be completed under the current ceiling and timeline.
The proposed modification would add three one-year option periods, pushing the contract’s ordering period from May 2028 to May 16, 2031. VA reviewed alternative vendors last month, including Epic, Veradigm, Athenahealth and Meditech, but concluded no other company could meet its EHR requirements and support needs.
VA Secretary Doug Collins told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies in May that hospitals are pushing to move up in the rollout order.
“My biggest problem right now is I have executive directors calling me up and saying, ‘can we move up on the list?'” Mr. Collins said. “This is key for them, not only to do their work internally, but also their community care aspects and talking to other VA hospitals.”
The EHR modernization effort has been underway since 2017. Congress has yet to finalize fiscal 2027 funding for the program: The House-passed appropriations bill includes $3.4 million for EHR modernization, while the Senate-passed continuing resolution does not.
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