VA sets Aug. 22 electronic health record rollout for Indiana facilities
The Department of Veterans Affairs plans to launch its Federal Electronic Health Record at three Indiana VA medical centers and associated clinics on Aug. 22, 2026, while temporarily limiting several online services used by veterans to manage care.
The facilities named in the VA notice are the Richard L. Roudebush VA Medical Center in Indianapolis, Fort Wayne VA Medical Center, Marion VA Medical Center, and multiple clinics in Indiana and Northern Indiana. The transition is part of the VA’s continuing effort to modernize its health-care records system.
For veterans who use VA digital services, the change comes with a series of different deadlines. The limits affect online appointment scheduling, appointment cancellations, secure messaging and prescription-related requests. The VA has not described the transition as a nationwide service shutdown, and the dates in the notice apply to the named Indiana facilities.
Online services will change on different dates
Online appointment scheduling is available until midnight Eastern Time on July 22, 2026, under the VA’s schedule. It is set to resume on Oct. 6, 2026. That creates the longest listed interruption among the online functions covered by the notice.
Online appointment cancellations remain available until midnight Eastern Time on Aug. 11. The cancellation function is scheduled to return on Sept. 1.
Secure messaging and online prescription-renewal requests are scheduled to pause after Aug. 15 and resume on Aug. 24. Online prescription-refill requests have a separate deadline: They are scheduled to pause after Aug. 18 and also resume on Aug. 24.
The VA says the My HealtheVet service on VA.gov and the VA: Health and Benefits mobile app will return to normal prescription-management availability on Aug. 24. The separate dates for scheduling, cancellations, messaging and prescriptions mean veterans may need to plan each type of request rather than treating the transition as one single service change.
Care remains available through other channels
Veterans can continue to seek help from their care teams by phone, in person or by mail. Community-care referrals also remain an option when available. The notice does not say that telephone or in-person care will be unavailable.
That distinction matters for veterans who rely on online tools for routine tasks. A patient who needs to schedule a future visit, cancel an appointment, send a secure message or request a prescription will face different digital deadlines depending on the service. The VA’s timetable makes those dates the practical planning points for patients using the affected facilities.
The rollout also comes as the department reports a large and active health-care and benefits workload. Listings in the VA press room describe more than 200,000 veterans enrolling in VA health care since the start of 2026 and a disability-claims backlog below 70,000. Those figures provide broader context for the department’s current operations, but the approved notice does not provide a nationwide cost estimate or a complete national timeline for the electronic-record rollout.
What happens next
The Indiana facilities are scheduled to transition on Aug. 22. Secure messaging, online prescription-renewal requests and online prescription-refill requests are scheduled to resume Aug. 24. Appointment cancellations are scheduled to resume Sept. 1, followed by online appointment scheduling on Oct. 6.
Veterans who use the named Indiana VA facilities should account for the applicable deadline before submitting an online request. For help during the transition, the VA notice directs patients to their care teams and the available phone, in-person, mail and community-care channels.
Sources
- My HealtheVet on VA.gov: What To Know, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
- VA Press Room, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs
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