TECHNOLOGY AND THE BUSINESS OF GOVERNMENT
04/30/09 06:01 pm ET
During a Thursday afternoon Web cast on the swine flu with top federal officials from the Health and Human and Services Department, the Homeland Security Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano received an e-mailed question from a Transportation Security Administration worker wondering about the use of face masks.>>
04/30/09 05:56 pm ET
The Obama administration has deployed all kinds of nifty Web tools to inform the public about the current outbreak of swine flu - which the Health and Human and Services Department now calls the H1N1 variant of influenza - including a Web cast this afternoon with top federal officials in a format most Americans find comfortable: a talk show.>>
04/29/09 05:15 pm ET
On Tuesday night, as I watched more than a squad of high-ranking folks called to the stage for induction into the Military Health Systems Honors Society, which was held during the farewell dinner for S. Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Arlington, I thought someone had made a mistake.>>
04/28/09 04:43 pm ET
President Obama plans to send 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan this year, boosting total U.S. forces in that country to more than 40,000. Other NATO countries, primarily the United Kingdom, have sent about another 20,000 troops.>>
04/27/09 11:54 am ET
The Health and Human Services Department declared a public health emergency on Sunday due to a limited outbreak of swine flu in California, Kansas, Ohio, Texas and New York, as well as Canada and New Mexico.>>
04/24/09 05:33 pm ET
I've been poking around for a couple of weeks on a story that, in 2001, the Naval Medical Center in San Diego had developed a low-cost way to integrate the Defense Department's Composite Health Care System (now called AHLTA, maybe not a noun) and the Veterans Affairs Department's electronic health record system, the Veterans Health Information System and Technology Architecture (VistA).>>
04/23/09 05:59 pm ET
The Army and Air Force CIOs -- Lt. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sorenson and Lt Gen William L. Shelton -- would only get a one-star bump. But since Allen is a one star, BG, this could mean a three-star jump for him -- unless some folks don't think the Marines qualify as a fill-fledged service because they are part of the Navy.>>
04/22/09 04:15 pm ET
When you think about organizations celebrating Earth Day - today, April 22 - the National Security Agency does not immediately come to mind.>>
04/22/09 09:24 am ET
In 1994 then Sen. William Cohen released a report titled "Computer Chaos: Billions Wasted Buying Federal Computer Systems." The report resonates even today with the release this month of a Defense Science Board report calling for the Defense Department to reform its information technology acquisition practices.>>
04/20/09 05:54 pm ET
I have picked up some pretty good intelligence that the VA inspector general has just finished a report detailing mismanagement of contracts that the department's IT shop farmed out to the Space and Naval Systems Center.>>
04/20/09 05:52 pm ET
The Veterans Affairs Department plans to conduct a "rigorous four moth review of potential options" for its long delayed $167 million patient scheduling system, which crashed last month, a VA press secretary told me.>>
04/17/09 05:49 pm ET
In July 1975, I wrote an article for TV Guide that started:>>
04/16/09 05:23 pm ET
I'm picking up strong signals that the Obama administration may tap Dr. Stephen Ondra, professor of neurological surgery at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago, as the new under secretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration.>>
04/15/09 03:27 pm ET
While the intelligence community has uncovered evidence of Chinese penetration of U.S. banking networks, Joel Brenner, national counterintelligence executive, said he's not worried "that the Chinese government wants to bring down our banking system.">>
04/14/09 05:34 pm ET
Households and businesses run on rigorous budgets, but the Defense Department doesn't. During the past six years, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the department follows what he described on Monday as an "off the cuff" budget approach, to fund essential stuff such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, mine-resistant vehicles and medical care for wounded soldiers.>>
04/13/09 05:14 pm ET
Navy Marine Corps Intranet users have repeatedly complained about the storage limitations of the intranet's e-mail system ever since the Navy and EDS (now owned by Hewlett-Packard) started to roll it out nine years ago.>>
04/10/09 03:27 pm ET
President Obama promised that the $83.4 billion 2009 war supplemental spending bill he sent to Capitol Hill yesterday would be the last one ever, and the Office of Management and Budget declared that in the future the president is committed to "honest budgeting and...>>
04/09/09 05:58 pm ET
I've been picking up rumors that the Defense Department's AHLTA electronic health record system crashed last month at about the same time as top military medical officials detailed the poor reliability of the system at a joint hearing of two House Armed Services subcommittees....>>
04/08/09 05:52 pm ET
The Veterans Affairs Department may be eight years behind schedule and $167 million in the hole on developing a patient scheduling application, but an eagle-eyed reader points out that another initiative seems to be on schedule. Under the "Coming Soon" section of the MyHealtheVet...>>
04/07/09 02:47 pm ET
Reactive defense of computer networks can run up a big tab in a short time, according to top Defense Department network officials. U.S. Strategic Command spent $100 million in six months in "after the fact" defense of Defense Department networks, Army Brig. Gen. John...>>
04/06/09 06:36 pm ET
Dr. Michael Kussman, undersecretary for health at the Veterans Health Administration, has resigned, effective in 30 days, well-placed sources have told me. Last month, Kussman wrote a memo detailing the near collapse of an eight-year, $167 million effort known as the Replacement Scheduling Application...>>
04/06/09 06:34 pm ET
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates today proposed slashing funding for big-ticket weapons systems in the 2010 Defense budget, including the Air Force's F-22 fighter, next-generation cruisers and vehicles used in the Army's Future Combat Systems program. But he backed training for cadres of cyber...>>
04/03/09 05:33 pm ET
The Senate Budget Committee squirreled away $2.37 billion in the $3.5 trillion fiscal 2010 federal budget for the next generation Air Force aerial refueling tanker -- the only Defense Department project that the Senate allocated a separate funding line to in the entire bill.>>
04/02/09 06:03 pm ET
The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Qwest wants to sell its long-distance network, which the company uses to carry traffic for its traffic for the General Services Administration's Networx contract and for the Defense Department.>>
04/01/09 04:46 pm ET
Because the United Sates no longer sets off nuclear bombs to test their powers (it's not environmentally green at all), the National Nuclear Security Administration uses supercomputers at its national laboratories to simulate a really big bang.>>
