For millions of veterans relying on the Veterans Administration (VA) for healthcare, a major challenge remains: disconnected medical records and poor care coordination.
“The latest report from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs stated they will complete deployment of the Federal Electronic Health Record (EHR) system at nine additional medical facilities, bringing the total to go live in 2026 to 13, with complete deployment of the EHR at all VA medical facilities as early as 2031.”
This lack of interoperability is especially problematic for veterans who receive care both inside and outside the VA system. When records don’t follow the patient, providers lack a full picture of their medical history, making it harder to deliver timely, informed care. While recent initiatives aim to integrate records more effectively, the transition has been slow, and the impact on patient outcomes remains a concern.
The VA Has Been Trying to Connect Medical Records for Over 20 Years
These efforts date back to the early 2000s. They initially used the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA), which was developed in the 1980s and became one of the most widely used EHR systems within the VA. Over time, the VA has attempted multiple modernization efforts. In total, the VA has used at least three major EHR systems (VistA, JLV, and Cerner Millennium) while struggling to achieve full interoperability.
Why Is It So Difficult?
The VA’s struggle to connect medical records and achieve full interoperability is due to several complex challenges including:
1. Legacy Systems & Data Migration – The VA’s original VistA system, developed in the 1980s, contains decades of patient records stored in different formats across numerous VA facilities. Migrating this data to a modern system like Cerner Millennium is incredibly complex and prone to errors.
2. Integration with the Department of Defense (DoD) – The VA and DoD use different EHR systems, making it difficult to create a seamless medical history for veterans transitioning from active duty to VA care. The goal of a unified record has been met with technical and bureaucratic hurdles.
3. Customization & System Incompatibilities – Each VA facility has customized versions of VistA, making standardization nearly impossible. Adapting the new system to meet the VA’s unique needs has led to delays, cost overruns, and usability issues for providers.
4. Provider Workflow Disruptions – VA clinicians are used to VistA’s workflow. Switching to a new EHR requires extensive training and adjustments, often leading to frustration, inefficiencies, and patient care disruptions.
5. High Costs & Implementation Delays – The transition to Cerner Millennium was initially projected at $10 billion (that’s BILLION) over 10 years, but has since ballooned to $16 billion+ with no clear timeline for completion. Technical failures, patient safety concerns, and leadership changes have stalled progress.
6. Interoperability with Non-VA Providers – Many veterans receive care from community providers outside the VA. Ensuring real-time data sharing between Cerner Millennium and non-VA systems (which often use Epic, Allscripts, or other EHRs) remains a major challenge.These continued obstacles have left veterans dealing with fragmented care, medical errors, and inefficiencies, highlighting the urgent need for a simpler, patient-controlled solution
MedKaz® Can Help Fix the VA’s Care Coordination Crisis
One of the biggest challenges veterans face in the VA healthcare system is disconnected medical records, leading to fragmented care and delayed treatments.
MedKaz® offers a simple yet powerful solution: a patient-controlled, portable health record that consolidates all medical history—across VA and non-VA providers—into one secure, easy-to-access system.
With MedKaz, veterans can:
✅ Carry their complete medical history on a small, secure device—no more missing or inaccessible records.
✅ Share records instantly with any provider, inside or outside the VA, ensuring informed, efficient care.
✅ Reduce medical errors and duplicate tests by giving doctors a full view of past treatments and medications.
✅ Improve care coordination between primary care physicians, specialists, and VA/non-VA facilities.
✅ Reduce patient safety risks: Ensuring the right care at the right time, for the right patient occurs, includes cross referencing previous tests, procedures and services. This is easily done with the MedKaz device.
It may seem simplistic, yet unlike large, slow-moving EHR systems, MedKaz empowers the patient and enables true interoperability without requiring massive infrastructure changes. For veterans, this can save
countless lives, reduce duplicate tests and procedures, and save the VA billions of dollars in ongoing costs. Veterans deserve seamless, high-quality healthcare—without the barriers of outdated, disconnected systems.
MedKaz makes that possible…today.
