Major Oracle outage hits US Federal health record systems

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Six Veterans Affairs hospitals were affected by an Oracle EHR outage
DOD, US Coast Guard and NOAA also affected by the downtime
VA plans to use Federal EHR in even more sites

Oracle’s Federal electronic health records (EHR) software recently suffered a nationwide outage, causing Veterans Affairs hospitals to revert to contingency procedures in order to continue treating patients as normal.

The outage started at 08:37 ET on March 4, causing software freezes and access issues, but the teams involved worked quickly on a remedy with systems finally being restored at 14:05 ET, with Oracle restarting the system.

A spokesperson for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) confirmed to CNBC: “Affected VA medical facilities followed standard contingency procedures during the outage to ensure continuity of care for Veterans.”

Oracle outage affects Veterans Affairs hospitals

The agency confirmed “all users” were affected, including Department of Defense, the US Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as six VA medical facilities in Spokane, Washington; Walla Walla, Washington; Columbus, Ohio; Roseburg, Oregon; White City, Oregon; and North Chicago, Illinois.

The VA spokesperson added: “Affected VA medical facilities followed standard contingency procedures during the outage to ensure continuity of care for Veterans. Oracle Health is conducting a full root cause analysis to determine what triggered this outage.”

TechRadar Pro has asked Oracle for more context on the issue, but we have not received a response.

Looking ahead, the VA appears committed to Oracle’s EHR. The agency said just days after the outage it, “will complete deployment of the Federal Electronic Health Record system at nine additional medical facilities” in 2026, adding to its previous December announcement revealing a further four Michigan-based facilities with go-live dates in 2026.

VA Secretary Doug Collins commented: “America’s Veterans deserve a medical records system that’s integrated across all VA and DOD components, and that is exactly what we will deliver.”

Collins added the VA “can and will” move faster, but it’s committed to listening to doctors, nurses and partners to get it right from the get-go.

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