VA Rolls Out New Federal EHR System in Chicago Hospital

The departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense and the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization office introduced the Federal Electronic Health Record at the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center in Illinois on Saturday. 

Lovell FHCC Director Dr. Robert Buckley said that the federal EHR rollout will improve all patient experiences as it enables a continuum of care, improves day-to-day operations and helps optimize every patient’s health outcome. 

The implementation comes after the VA paused other deployments under a reset of its Electronic Health Record Modernization program, VA .gov reported.

In May 2023, the Government Accountability Office disclosed that users of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ new EHR system expressed dissatisfaction due mostly to the lack of training opportunities before the rollout of the system. 

Initially rolled out in 2020, the department disclosed an updated plan for the implementation of the new EHR system in December 2021, addressing issues identified in the Comprehensive Lessons Learned report submitted to Congress.