VA’s own records show that the new electronic health record system has already been associated with 4,601 cases of patient harm. Ten were classified as catastrophic, VA’s own designation for death or major permanent loss of function.

Yet the rollout is continuing.

The system is scheduled to reach approximately 120 more VA hospitals through 2031, putting millions more veterans and the clinicians who care for them into a system that has already generated years of documented warnings, patient safety findings, inspector general reports, and congressional scrutiny.

This campaign is not based on speculation or partisan disagreement. The evidence comes from the government’s own records.

Veterans should not have to accept preventable harm as the price of modernization. VA employees should not have to struggle against technology that interferes with their ability to provide safe, timely care. And taxpayers should not be asked to keep funding a system when serious safety problems remain unresolved.

We are veterans, healthcare workers, health policy and bioinformatics scholars, caregivers, families, and concerned citizens calling for one clear course of action:

Stop the rollout. End the Oracle contract. Restore VistA.

VistA was built inside VA around the needs of veterans and the people who care for them. It still operates at the overwhelming majority of VA medical centers. We should improve what works rather than continue expanding a system that VA’s own evidence shows has harmed patients.

The people affected by these decisions deserve a voice before another hospital goes live.

Add yours.