Early uses of artificial intelligence tools across the Department of Veterans Affairs will help officials determine which capabilities should be added to its new electronic health record system, VA outlined in its updated AI strategy.
The plan, released on Tuesday, said “VA aims to be an industry leader in its use of effective, reliable, and safe AI tools” by using more advanced technologies to automate and augment certain clinical and operational tasks.
VA is in the process of restarting deployments of its new EHR system at 13 medical facilities in 2026, after having paused most rollouts of the software in April 2023. The stoppage came after the modernization project was slowed by a host of problems that included patient safety concerns, technical outages and usability issues. The new software has been implemented at just six of the department’s 170 medical centers.
Tuesday’s updated strategy noted that the department is “undergoing a major transformation” through its EHR modernization initiative, as well as “increased enterprise standardization” across its mission. But VA’s plan remained somewhat opaque about incorporating emerging technologies into its new EHR software.
“These efforts are essential, but with AI, the use cases are still emerging, and we often do not yet know what should be standardized,” the strategy said. “The VA must prioritize and enable innovation and agility while also rapidly scaling and standardizing successful innovations.”
VA previously listed 227 use cases in its 2024 AI inventory, the majority of which it said were safety- or rights-impacting because of the capabilities’ relation to the department’s healthcare operations. These include several uses of AI tools to help VA identify and support veterans who are at high-risk of suicide.
The new plan said these early use cases will help guide VA’s broader deployments of enhanced capabilities.
“VA is taking a dual-track approach by enabling early AI experimentation while allowing those lessons to inform future standards,” the strategy said. “As AI tools are validated and show worth, they will be incorporated into the EHR and many other information technology platforms through coordination between innovators and the teams managing those systems today.”
The updated AI strategy outlined VA’s vision for the use of emerging capabilities, with the department listing five priorities: improving veteran-facing digital services; enhancing clinical software; speeding up claims processing; upgrading customer support operations; and bolstering information management.
VA said the use and adoption of AI, in particular, to support its clinical software “will begin to reframe the EHR as a more adaptive, context-aware copilot, which will reduce administrative burden and enable providers to focus more on patient care and less on paperwork.”
The strategy added that AI tools “will enable interoperable applications that supplement EHR native capabilities, integrating with legacy and new EHRs to facilitate smooth transition.”
Restarting VA’s EHR modernization project has been a priority for the Trump administration, with the department setting a goal of deploying the new software at all of its facilities and medical sites by 2031.
During a panel discussion last month, Dr. Neil Evans — acting program executive director of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration Office — said the focus of the ongoing modernization project remains on swift and effective deployments, although he added that a successful rollout means the department can then move to adopt next-generation technologies.
“You’ve got to do [the EHR rollout] in a very rigorous and careful way to make sure that we do not disrupt operations in the nation’s largest healthcare system,” Evans said. “But that work is foundational work we need to do because it’s what allows us to then continue. It is a piece of the roadmap forward to say, ‘Let’s continue to innovate and deliver technologies.’”
