Several high-profile media reports over recent years also highlighted how the build-up of bureaucracy over time had impacted care and services for our Veterans. We had a strategy disconnected from the needs of our employees, our business partners, and the Veterans we serve. Employees in the field did not know what was happening across OI&T, and there was no single voice telling the story of OI&T's successes … or single ear listening to the concern of our employees. OI&T has 8,000 government employees and 8,000 contractors, and supports more than 1,600 VA facilities and 365 data centers, yet we had no single way of communicating with one another.
#2017 BEST OF THE BEST US VETS SOFTWARE#
Our sequential, "waterfall" approach to software development resulted in cumbersome processes, lengthy delivery times, and prevented us from gathering meaningful requirements and iterative feedback from our business partners-the end users who relied on our IT solutions to address critical Veteran needs. OI&T developed IT solutions that met the needs of a few without knowing what our business partners and field staff really needed from that technology. Our skilled developers and technicians around the country worked in vacuums, on projects that did not always align the technical solution to the needs of the Veterans we serve…and in ways that disconnected them from one another and from the heart of our mission, the Veteran.Įmployees expressed frustration at the perception that there was a field-based OI&T and a "Washington OI&T." Requirements in the field were not always relayed to decision makers at headquarters. Our siloes of data throughout VA prevented clinicians from accessing a holistic picture of a Veteran’s service record. Over the past 10 years, the accumulation of burdensome, disconnected governance boards, and numerous artifacts and software development decision points stunted our ability to innovate-to engage our business partners in developing IT solutions that aligned with their strategic needs and create capabilities that delivered real value to the Veteran. VA had thousands of unsecured devices, a situation driven home in 2006 when 26 million Veterans' personal information was compromised.īut most of our attention went to the budget and system security. Our IT systems were disjointed-we could not share business partner information nationwide, manage enterprise infrastructure, or ensure the security of our systems. Our IT team, policies, and operations were sprawled throughout a large network of medical centers, regional offices, and other facilities with no unifying team. Prior Chief Information Officers (CIOs) had direct influence over only 3 percent of the technology budget, and only 6 percent of the information technology professionals.
In 2006, all of the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) information technology functions were centralized into a single organization. The list of accomplishments includes the implantable cardiac pacemaker, computerized axial tomography (CAT) scans, functional electrical stimulation systems that allow patients to move paralyzed limbs, the nicotine patch, and the first electronic ankle-foot prosthesis. Over the years, VA researchers nationwide have worked on thousands of studies to advance medical science treatment and technology. VA has long driven advances in technology and delivered innovative solutions for our Veterans. Organization chart prior to Transformation "People say, 'with government, it's going to be slow, you can't make change, things take forever.' And I say 'really, why is that?' The reality is, is that truth, or is that a vision we've walked into?" The rapid expansion of information technology in our modern world created paradigm shifts in how individuals, commercial entities, academia, non-profits, and governments interact, and the pace of change and tectonic shifts in the global economy found VA's Office of Information and Technology (OI&T) wholly unprepared to meet the changing needs of its business partners and the Veterans we serve. In 2015, the Office of Information & Technology was at a crossroads.
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