Government Accountability Office (GAO)

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U.S. Efforts To Regulate Consultants Face Big Obstacles

Ben Protess and Jessica Silver-Greenberg | DealBooks | April 10, 2013

Federal regulators are facing pressure from Capitol Hill to rein in a multibillion-dollar consulting industry after the companies stumbled during their recent review of mortgage foreclosure abuses. But the efforts could be stymied, given regulators’ close ties to consultants and limited legal authority to penalize them. Read More »

Using Open Technology To Build a Biodefense Against the Coronavirus

As the number of US cases of the coronavirus rises, how will healthcare professionals be able to tell the difference between which panicked patients with similar symptoms has what? Even if the patient hasn't traveled to Wuhan or China recently, what if they sat at a Starbucks with someone who did? With the incubation time-lag before symptoms appear, who would even know? The challenge of monitoring 330 million people for infectious disease outbreaks is daunting. Take the flu as an example. During the last flu season which, as already discussed, was not as complex as this year's season, approximately 35.5 million Americans had flu symptoms, 16.5 million received medical care, 490,600 were hospitalized and 34,200 died.

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VA And DoD’s Reversal On Electronic Health Records Criticized

Steve Vogel | The Washington Post | February 27, 2013

The decision this month by the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to scrap plans to create a single electronic health record came under renewed attack Wednesday on Capitol Hill as the Government Accountability Office questioned the departments’ assertion that the action will enable them to deliver improved health care more quickly and for less money. Read More »

VA and VistA: Can they be fixed?

Aisha Chowdhry | FCW | July 27, 2016

pivoting away from VistA, the agency's homegrown electronic health record system, would be a major shift for the VA. Former VA CIO Roger Baker said VistA is the only EHR designed by doctors, not technologists. "That is the real power of VistA, and it remains the real power of VistA," he added. The system, rooted in 1970s code, is designed to assist doctors in their daily work. Providers at the various VA medical facilities nationwide customize it for their specific needs.

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VA program to schedule patient appointments on verge of collapse

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | March 31, 2009

An eight-year-old, $167 million project to develop a core computer application to schedule patient appointments at hospitals run by the Veterans Affairs Department has all but collapsed, and senior executives are worried about the repercussions it could cause on the Hill and in the White House, according to an internal memo obtained by Nextgov. Read More »

VA System: Obama's Ultimate Failure

Susan Stamper Brown | Columbus Telegram | April 7, 2013

Sadly, bureaucracy is a time-honored tradition in the United States government, but perhaps no greater bureaucratic juggernaut exists today than the Veteran's Administration (VA) run by the Obama Administration. Read More »

VA, DoD EHR Project: Security Game Plan

Marianne Kolbasuk McGee | GovInfoSecurity | March 1, 2013

Although the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense are taking a new approach to building their long-awaited integrated electronic health record system, many key components of the data security strategy for the project will remain the same, says Roger Baker, the VA's outgoing CIO. Read More »

VA, DOD Integrated Health Program Makes Some, But Not Enough Progress, GAO Says

Henry Kenyon | Fierce Government IT | July 10, 2014

The troubled effort by the departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense to combine their electronic health records into a single system has partially met goals set by Congress. But investigators say improvement is needed before more funding can be allocated to the initiative...

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VanRoekel Called To Testify On Wasteful IT Spending

David Stegon | FedScoop | January 17, 2013

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee has called a hearing to discuss “the wasteful and dysfunctional fashion in which the federal government acquires information technology systems and services.” Read More »

Vendor sues NASA over open source project

Frank Konkel | FCW | January 4, 2013

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s plans to transition to a content management system with open source architecture are on hold for a little while...that contract has come under protest from eTouch Federal Systems LLC, which filed a formal bid protest on Dec. 28 against NASA’s new deal with InfoZen. Read More »

Veterans Affairs: We want the DOD to pick us for its new EHR

Jennifer Bresnick | EHR Intelligence | March 14, 2014

The VA will be adding its competitive bid to a host of commercial offerings, said VA Secretary Eric Shinseki during a hearing this week, to give the DOD more options as it selects a new EHR system to replace the aging AHLTA suite. Read More »

VistA Marketing Ramps Up in Advance of DoD EHR Award

Molly Bernhart Walker | FierceGovernmentIT | January 14, 2015

A marketing campaign aimed at raising the profile of the Veterans Affairs Department's open source electronic health record is in full swing. A non-profit group founded through a VA contract to advance the department's Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture has stood up a website, Twitter account and LinkedIn group to promote VistA. Read More »

We Paid Over $500 Million For The Obamacare Sites And All We Got Was This Lousy 404 [Updated]

Andrew Couts | Digital Trends | October 8, 2013

It’s been one full week since the flagship technology portion of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) went live. And since that time, the befuddled beast that is Healthcare.gov has shutdown, crapped out, stalled, and mis-loaded so consistently that its track record for failure is challenged only by Congress. Read More »

What's wrong with IT at Veterans Affairs?

Frank Konkel | FCW | May 1, 2013

Projects are stalled, and top leaders have departed. Investigations and agency sources paint a bleak picture inside VA's IT office. Read More »