The Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program has been under fire in recent months after two VA Office of Inspector General’s (OIG) reports revealed program missteps and underreported, unreported, or unknown program costs. In response, the VA pledged to provide a full lifecycle cost estimate of the program – which Congress wanted to see within 90 days – but a VA official said today that the cost estimate will take at least 12 months to complete. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has seen a nine percent increase in Veterans Health Administration (VHA) employees that have received the COVID-19 vaccine since the VA mandated the shot, but is still facing a 12 percent unvaccinated share of VHA employees with only a few weeks left before the Oct. 8 deadline. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has named Dr. Neil Evans as its new acting chief information officer (CIO), the agency confirmed to MeriTalk. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Office of Information and Technology is seeking a contractor to maintain an Authority to Operate (ATO) for the Social Security Numbers Reduction (SSNR) Tool in the VA Enterprise Cloud (VAEC) environment. […]

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Denis McDonough has called the recent VA Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) reports highlighting the Electronic Health Records Modernization (EHRM) program missteps “extremely disappointing,” but told members of Congress on July 14 that he is proposing a new approach for the program he hopes will get VA’s efforts “back on track.” […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO), in summarized testimony prepared for a House Veterans Affairs Committee on July 1, said the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has made much progress in recent years to address GAO recommendations on improving cybersecurity, but still has a significant to-do list to tackle on the security front. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) believes it has enough IT funding this year to slowly start reducing its technical debt for the first time, agency leaders said today during a House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs hearing on the fiscal year 2022 (FY2022) VA IT budget. […]

A new report from the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) puts veterans’ sensitive information and facility security at risk by not following requirements about documenting personal identity verification (PIV) cards returned by contract personnel. […]

Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Secretary Denis McDonough said he expects some results from a strategic review of VA’s electronic health records (EHR) system that began in March to be delivered in the next couple of weeks.   […]

President Biden’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 budget includes an estimated $58.439 billion in IT spending for Federal civilian agencies, and $500 million for the General Service Administration’s (GSA) Technology Modernization Fund (TMF), according to a budget breakdown the White House released today. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) strategic review of the VA’s Electronic Health Records (EHR) program has found that the agency underestimated program costs by between $1 billion and $2.6 billion. […]

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has outlined 28 priority open recommendations for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in a new report, which include items involving information technology and timely COVID-19 data collection. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) issued a request for information (RFI) to explore emerging technologies and data-driven solutions, and how the VA can work with contractors to develop and integrate these technologies to deliver better services. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is replacing its aging financial and acquisition systems with an integrated system after two prior attempts to replace the systems cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of several years to develop. In a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, GAO made recommendations to minimize risk of cost overruns and delays. […]

President Biden’s fiscal year 2022 request for discretionary funding sent to Congress on April 9 would line up the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for substantial budget increases that include significant amounts for tech-related spending. […]

Reps. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Mike Bost, R-Ill., introduced legislation that would direct the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to lead a communications and outreach program aimed to educate veterans on cyber risks. […]

President Biden’s $2 trillion American Jobs Plan released by the White House today takes aim at upgrading technology facilities at public K-12 schools and community colleges as part of a broad education investment plan worth more than $100 billion. […]

After a year of moving IT heaven and earth to enable a huge jump in telehealth services for veterans during the coronavirus pandemic, officials from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) said March 23 that one of the biggest remaining obstacles to delivering telehealth is a lack of sufficient and/or affordable broadband service in areas where some veterans live. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is pausing its electronic health record (EHR) modernization program for up to 12 weeks to allow for a thorough “strategic review” to ensure program success. […]

As IT modernization has become essential for Federal agencies to meet their mission needs, agency leaders described digital modernization plans and shared some insight on how to modernize effectively and efficiently. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has teamed with T-Mobile to deploy 5G capabilities for the Miami VA Healthcare System, providing 5G service to medical staff and patients with capable devices. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has made progress on implementing its new electronic health records (EHR) system, but should postpone deployments of the system at additional locations because additional testing will likely identify issues that need to be resolved first, the Government Accountability Office said in a new report. […]

While the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to impact healthcare delivery to veterans well into 2021, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and its Veterans Health Administration (VHA) component are already taking into account requirements for telehealth services when the pandemic abates but its mental-health impacts persist.  […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is poised to issue an agency data strategy that will help advance the mission of caring for veterans while still protecting personally identifiable information (PII) and other health data, said Kshemendra Paul, VA’s CDO, at a FedInsider event Jan. 12. […]

President-elect Joe Biden announced today that his administration will be nominating Denis McDonough as Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA), as well as naming a few others to key cabinet positions. “This dedicated and distinguished group of public servants will bring the highest level of experience, compassion, and integrity to bear, solving problems and expanding possibilities […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has released a “Customer Experience (CX) Cookbook” for Federal agencies that features key ingredients and recipes for embedding CX in Federal services and for cooking up CX best practices. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) Veterans Health Administration – which boasts the largest integrated health system in the U.S. – is continuing to embrace 5G technology by exploring meaningful use cases to support veterans, an agency official said today. […]

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) on Oct. 24 officially launched its new electronic health record (EHR) system at VA facilities in the Pacific Northwest and Las Vegas. […]

The National AI Institute (NAII) is starting up a new AI Tech Sprint within the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) which aims to empower an AI-enabled ecosystem through voluntary incentives linking Federal, industry, academia, and nonprofit organization ecosystems around AI R&D. […]