July 21, 2009 by admin.

By Aliya Sternstein 07/17/2009

Top officials with the Veterans Affairs Department, while compiling data for a recently launched White House Web site that details information technology projects, identified more than 45 failing projects that the agency subsequently suspended, federal Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundra said in an interview with Nextgov on Friday.

In preparing data for the so-called IT Dashboard , a site that offers a window into the complex and costly process of procuring government IT services, VA officials discovered problems with some of the agency’s IT projects. For example, while sifting through the data, VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki and CIO Roger Baker learned that a scheduling project was running 17 months behind schedule, Kundra said.

Shinseki and Baker announced on Friday that they temporarily stopped development of 45 projects that are either behind schedule or over budget to determine if they should be canceled or salvaged.

“The dashboard is an impetus and is a driver for looking deep into where the problems are with these projects,” Kundra said. But fixing IT problems requires “making sure we’ve got rock star CIOs in agencies,” such as Baker, he said.

The tool represents part of a larger White House effort to hold the government accountable for contract management, Kundra added. The purpose of the site is to update the public every month on the cost, schedule and performance figures, so taxpayers can see which IT projects are on-track and which are not.

Many problems with federal IT investments date back to the 1990s, and Kundra stressed that the dashboard is a first step to reversing schedule slippages and cost overruns. “Without acting on the insight” from the dashboard, “what we end up with is the same management processes and problems,” he said.

Kundra and VA leaders plan to meet regularly to audit progress on the IT projects, which are budgeted to receive about $200 million in fiscal 2009. They include a health data repository, home telehealth infrastructure enhancement and a master patient index.

The dashboard, unveiled on June 30, draws inspiration from a management style Kundra employed while serving as chief technology officer for the District of Columbia. The “stock market model” of IT management, as he described it, involved imagining projects and programs as public companies. District portfolio managers reviewed all IT investments through quarterly evaluations of cost, time and value.

Kundra now encourages Americans nationwide to suggest new projects and provide advice on managing the ongoing IT initiatives by submitting comments on the dashboard site.

By Aug. 1, agency CIOs must submit investment evaluations to the Office of Management and Budget to update the site’s analytics. The dashboard is slated to exceed requirements set out in federal law by refreshing statistics monthly. “The process of launching [the dashboard] involved working closely with CIOs to get reports monthly instead of [the mandated] quarterly [cycle] . . . to make sure they were putting management process in place that made sense,” Kundra said.

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July 16, 2009 by admin.

By Bob Brewin   07/15/09 10:47 am ET

The Defense and Veterans Affairs departments will achieve full interoperability of electronic health records by Sept. 30, Rear Admiral Gregory Timberlake, acting directorof the Defense and VA interagency program office, told a House VA Committee hearing on Tuesday.

Timberlake, testifying before the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the House VA Committee, quickly added this achievement is based on the definition of interoperability, developed by a critter called the Defense/VA Interagency Clinical Informatics Board, which at least from my perspective, erects a rather small fence around an all-encompassing term. As defined by Timberlake, interoperability of Defense/VA electronic health record systems means that within 79 days they can:

– Exchange social history data, i.e. information on patient use of alcohol and tobacco, for example.

– Share physical exam data.

– Share information from patient questionnaires and self-assessment tools.

– Expand use of the Defense inpatient medical records system. (AHLTA, the Defense health record system, only serves outpatients.)

– demonstrate the ability of Defense to scan paper medical records and then transfer them to VA. (As Timberlake, whose Naval career started in 1972, pointed out, folks in uniform for a long time have an equally long tail of paper records used before anyone even thought up electronic health records, hence the need for scanning.)

– Develop secure gateways with increased bandwidth to facilitate health record sharing.

Timberlake told the hearing that some of the above — including the document scanning operation — are still works in progress.

Roger Baker, the VA CIO, had his own definition of interoperabilty. In his prepared testimony, Baker told the panel that the two departments have made a commitment to ensure clinicians “have the information they need from each other to treat our common patients. This is not to say all electronic medical data will be shared; only to emphasize that everything deemed essential by our clinicians will be shared.” He then invoked the guidelines from the Interagency Clinical Informatics Board critter.

Valerie Melvin, director of information management and human capital issues at the Government Accountability Office, said that while Defense and VA will achieve some measure of interoperability by Sept. 30, they will not meet the mandate of full interoperability required by the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act.

The departments are engaged in a slow, rather than expeditious process, she said. In her prepared testimony, Melvin said expansion of the Defense in-patient electronic health record system, based on commercial software from CliniComp International, will require “substantial additional work” beyond the Sept. 30 deadline. Ditto for the document scanning project.

Timberlake, who returned from active duty in November 2008 to run the interagency program office on an interim basis, said the real work on interoperability was stymied by difficulty in recruiting and hiring staff, and getting the machinery in sync.

Timberlake took on a thankless task, and he should not be faulted for what I know has been a herculean effort to get Defense and VA to work together, a mission almost as daunting as “peace in our time.”

That said I have to agree with Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., who described progress on Defense and VA electronic health record interoperability as “dismally glacial.”

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July 9, 2009 by admin.

By Andy Leonatti CongressDaily July 8, 2009

The Senate Appropriations Committee easily approved a $133.9 billion spending bill for military construction projects and the Veterans Affairs Department on Tuesday, a day after it sailed through subcommittee. The vote was 21-0.

Last month, the House Appropriations Committee approved a $133 billion spending bill.

The Senate measure includes $76.7 billion in discretionary spending, an amount that is $439.1 million above President Obama’s request. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii said the discretionary portion is 5 percent above fiscal 2009 spending.

The bill appropriates $109 billion total for VA, including $53.2 billion in discretionary funding, $150 million more than Obama requested. Total medical care funding for VA is $44.7 billion.

The bill also includes $48.2 billion in advance appropriations for fiscal 2011 in three VA medical accounts: medical services, medical support and compliance, and medical facilities. Appropriations Committee ranking member Thad Cochran, R-Miss., said the advance appropriations would provide “more predictable” funding levels that will improve the quality of healthcare for veterans.

Military Construction-VA Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Tim Johnson, D-S.D., said the committee will carefully go over funding again before a fiscal 2011 appropriations bill is worked on next year, but that it was “important to maintain stable healthcare funding.”

VA funding includes $2.1 billion for health care for veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a $463 million increase over fiscal 2009, and $5.9 billion for long-term care for aging veterans and severely wounded Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. It also includes $1.9 billion for VA hospital and clinic construction.

Johnson said the bill also contains $1.4 billion for overseas contingency operations in Afghanistan, a separate category from the military construction projects.

The bill provides $23.2 billion for military construction projects, $286 million more than Obama’s request. The funding includes $12.6 billion for active and reserve military construction, $2 billion for family housing and $373 million for the Homeowners Assistance Program to provide mortgage relief to military families forced to relocate. The Base Closure and Realignment Program is also fully funded at $7.5 billion.

Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said she was glad the bill included a request for a report on cost savings for residential barracks for the military. Family housing can now be built with 25 percent savings, and Landrieu said the same should be done for barracks, pointing out that 30 percent of the Army’s barracks are at least 30 years old.

Additionally, the bill provides $279 million for related agencies, including $80.6 million for the American Battle Monuments Commission, $27.1 million for the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans’ Claims, $37.2 million for Arlington National Cemetery and $134 million for the Armed Forces Retirement Home.

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July 7, 2009 by admin.

By Bob Brewin   07/02/09 04:20 pm ET

In many cases, the new GI bill, called the 2008 Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, offers a better deal than its predecessor, the Montgomery GI bill.

But not always.

Post 9/11 vets attending school full time who need tuition and housing assistance will probably reap richer benefits under the new bill, especially if the school they attend provides extra financial assistance under the Veterans Affairs Department’s Yellow Ribbon program.

But post 9/11 vets still on active duty attending school at night or taking correspondence courses at non-Yellow Ribbon program schools could make out better under the Montgomery bill.

That’s what an Iraq war vet buddy of mine still on active duty discovered to his horror this week. He signed up for the post 9/11 bill, only to learn later that he would receive about half of the $1,300-a-month payment he would have received under the Montgomery bill.

This vet tried to change his benefits to the Montgomery bill but found that VA had processed his application for benefits in just two weeks - proving that in this case, the new and improved GI bill benefits processing system is indeed working at the advertised pace.

At the moment, it seems my pal has little hope, because VA told him he had made an “irrevocable” election of benefits, even though he won’t receive a check until August.

But if VA wants to make benefits irrevocable, I think it needs to do a better job of explaining the differences in benefits under the two bills. Yes, VA does have a GI bill Web site, which, I guess, if one clicks enough links, a veteran can eventually determine which bill offers the best package of benefits, depending on individual circumstances.

I suggest VA develop and quickly post a chart on the site that offers a side-by-side comparison of the benefits available under both bills.

Until then, my buddy suggests veterans consult Military.com which offers a nifty online guide for the two bills.

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