Sharon,
Yes, the same process can be followed to get from v7 to v8 to v8.5 to v9. Be aware that we announced a year ago the end of service dates (EOS) for v7, v8 and Java 6 for v8.5 and that they will go out of service April of 2018. You should endeavor to migrate all applications and environments to v8.5 (Java 7 or Java 8) or v9 (Java 8) prior to that date. Be aware that Java 7 also goes EOS in 2019 so it is definitely preferred to go directly to Java 8 while doing your migration to avoid the need to do it again.
We have a suite of tools to assist in the migration process. They are all freely available and easy to use. There are tools for migrating the application code (a binary scanner and an Eclipse / RAD plugin migration toolkit) as well as the configuration. This page introduces the tools and contains the links to download them: https://developer.ibm.com/wasdev/docs/migration/
Contact your local sales team and they can put you in touch with a WebSphere technical specialist who can answer any other questions you may have or assist you in running the tools.
Good luck!