First Phase of VA EHR Rollout Successful, Deputy Secretary Says

The Department of Veterans Affairs rolled out the first wave of its electronic health records modernization project in Michigan and is poised for more deployments across the country this year, said Deputy VA Secretary Paul Lawrence.

“Our plan is to get veterans [an] electronic health record that enables world-class care,” he said in a speech at a Code of Support Foundation event Thursday.

National EHR Deployments

The Michigan deployments mark the beginning of the VA’s relaunch of an effort that had been dormant for two years. On April 11, the VA completed launches at facilities in Ann Arbor, Battle Creek, Saginaw and Detroit.

The deployments continue throughout the year. Additional launches will take place in Ohio in June, Indiana in August, and Anchorage and Cleveland in October. In the case of Anchorage and Cleveland, Lawrence noted both facilities are linked because of the medical care they provide. Additionally, he said the VA is preparing sites in Wisconsin for its EHR launch in 2027.

The VA strategy is to launch the EHR modernization in four facility waves to increase their impact in regional healthcare markets, Lawrence told GovCIO Media and Research.

When the EHR deployments are complete, they will be part of major upgrades to VA services. Lawrence added that in five years, the department’s system will be the envy of other medical centers because of the tools, resources and type of medical practice provided. “This is what we’re setting in motion, and this is what we’re doing with the electronic health record program,” he said.

However, the changes represent more than technology. “It’s about faster decisions, better coordination, and making sure that as veterans move across facilities and across the country, their care follows them,” he said.

Prioritizing Veterans Care

The EHR launches are part of a broader effort to modernize services for veterans. This includes VA Secretary Doug Collins’ six priorities for serving veterans:

• Putting veterans at the center of everything the VA does
• Providing timely access to care and benefits
• Expanding choice in how veterans receive their care
• Challenging the status quo
• Empowering employees and holding them accountable to include leaders
• Reaching the most critical veterans at risk of homelessness or suicide.

“Those priorities help us drive decisions and produce results,” noted Lawrence, adding that in the last 16 months, the VA made significant progress in each of these areas.

This includes improved timelines for processing monthly benefits claims. A key part being reducing the backlog of veterans waiting more than 125 days for claims processing.

Lawrence said some 264,000 veterans were waiting for benefits in January 2025, adding that as of Thursday, that number was down to 81,000.

VA officials recently told Congress that AI-assisted decision-support tools helped dramatically cut the backlog while maintaining high accuracy rates.

“A year or two ago, you would have waited 140 days to get your benefits. Today you wait two months, less than 80 days. We’re very much focused on making sure veterans get the benefits they earned,” he said.

Lawrence noted that the improvement to the VA’s systems and processes allow veterans to navigate it “with purpose and support.” He added that trust in the VA is at an all-time high based on improved delivery of care and benefits.