The Veterans Affairs Department on Friday said it halted development of 45 information technology projects that were behind schedule or over budget, with Secretary Eric Shinseki personally making the announcement.
Shinseki, who promised to leverage technology to develop a 21st century VA during his confirmation hearing in January, said he put the brakes on the projects because "VA has a responsibility to the American people, who are investing millions of dollars in technology projects, to deliver quality results that adhere to a budget and are delivered on time."
He added, "They need to have confidence that the dollars they are spending are being effectively used to improve the lives of our Veterans."
The Housed and Senate Appropriations Committees approved a record $3.3 billion IT budget for the VA for fiscal 2010, but the Senate fenced off expenditure of roughly $1.1 billion of IT development funds until VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker completes a review of some 300 troubled IT systems.
Key projects under review by Baker include the already suspended Replacement Scheduling Application Development Program, which VA has spent $167 million on since 2001 and had budgeted at $46.5 million in fiscal 2010. VA also halted development of the Pharmacy Re-Engineering project, budgeted at $20.5 million for fiscal 2010, and a Health Data Repository for the new HealtheVet electronic health record system, which had a planned $41.5 million budget for fiscal 2010.
Baker said all the suspended projects will be run through the department's new Program Management Accountability System before they get a go-ahead. "Our goal is to increase our success rate for our systems development projects," Baker said.
The other IT projects* halted by VA until the review is completed are:
HealtheVet Middleware Services
Person Service Identity Management
Administrative Data Repository
Document & Ancillary Imaging
Clinical Data Service
VA Learning Management
Home Telehealth Development
Occupational Health Record Keeping System
Enrollment System Redesign
Chemistry & Hematology: Automation
Clinical Flow Sheet
E-Gov: E-Training
Barcode Expansion
Delivery Service
Organization Service
Enrollment System Redesign
Home Telehealth Infrastructure Enhancements
Radiology outside Reporting
Bar Code Medication Administration Inpatient Medication Request
Blood Bank system
Prosthetics Enhancements
VIC (Veterans Identification Card) Development
Spinal Cord Injury & Disorders Outcomes
Radiology HL7 Interface Update
Ward Drug Dispensing Equipment Interface
Lab Data Sharing & Interoperability - Anatomic Pathology/Microbiology
Medical Foster Home system
Exclaims Plus
Case Management Modification
National Teleradiology Program
Compensation and Pension Record Interchange
Master Patient Index
RMS - Rights Management Server
National Teleradiology Program
Problem List Standardization
Radiology Standardization
Laboratory Data Sharing Interface Terminology Support
Clinical/Health Data Repositories Phase II
Fee Data/ Health Care Effectiveness through Resource Optimization Health Care Effectiveness through Resource Optimization
* Total projects listed do not add up to 45 due to multiple pharmacy re-engineering and health data repository projects
COMMENTS
My hats off to Secretary Eric Shinseki & I salute him for taking these steps. I would urge & request other government officials to evaluate and assess long winded & blindly awarded projects in their respective agencies.
Ethical integrity & accountability comes at all levels & it really comes from the top. Normally there is a lot of lip service both at the elected officials & agency official levels & the same goes for the private sector where for most part (not all but majority) talk about core values, post colorful posters and do a lot of dance & drama about integrity, ethics (SOX was lot of killing the trees but no substance) but they never walk the talk. Hopefully the actions of Secretary Eric Shinseki will raise the conscious levels, and send a wake up call.
Millions of tax payers dollars are being wasted on multi year projects and these multimillion & billion dollar projects are being awarded to system integrators and vendors who are selected based on personal relations either of the head of the program who has friends working at the system integrators or family and the head influences the procurement officers. There is a long standing & strongly cultivated culture both at the integrators and vendors level. Typically these companies hire retired DOD officials, who are bonded with the agencies and that influences the award process. Too much everything is bad but if the authorities start reviewing & unveiling some of these scenarios there is chaos, decay, fraud and unfair practices at full play. In many cases elected members of congress and senate also play a part for a lucrative kickback.
Some of the integrators are so used to this malpractice culture that even when they are in bavkcrupacy court they still find ways to find ways of getting kickbacks at the expense of the client.
It is about time that all agency heads come clean and let the PMO audit multiyear projects where stem integrators have parked with unskilled workforce for years so that the equity checks of partners can be fattened and some retired officer on the company's paycheck or the congressman gets paid handsomely.
DHS has wasted millions of dollars without much outcome and rather than just fattening this unaccountable cow it is time to first assess and then spend the new funds.
None of the objectives & vision set by the administration to modernize the public sector, to create open transparency, to make government both accountable, & efficient, to create an innovative way of centralize the disparate data, unless & until there is a sincere and ethical effort in the following:
Attributes of success include people, process & technology.
The KIss principe is absolute a must!
Our economic situation is bleak so we need to look at disruptive ways to innovate ways to modernize our government
Most complex technology is not always the answer.
Assessment of all investments in the past years need to be evaluated to salvage those investments
New ways of automation & technical architecture needs to be reviewed such as google apps, cloud computing, SAAS, COTS, open architecture,
Proactive & Passionate mindsets with moral integrity needs to be spear heading these initiatives.
Rather than building a piece meal, silo reactive approach, strategy should be developed to end to end fully integrated solutions to address business needs, with integrated controls, information & Cybersecurity & Risk Management principles Compliance & Governance
requirements in place.
There is also an absolute need for Change Management & Transformation in the public sector. Rather than handing over the destiny of all projects in the hands of system integrators, consulting companies and slick vendors it is imperative for the public sector to take their destiny in their hands. Multi year projects have cost both the public sector & tax payor millions of dollars without a resounding outcome. It is observed that all projects become a victim of paper pushing, bureaucracy, numerous long meetings that do not add any value and government leadership who do not have the art of being precise & concise; in meetings project leaders, or program managers talk & talk, and go in tangents have no clue of the problem at hand. This scenario does not reflect the vision that President Obama has to make the government efficient.
For the past three decades it is a commonly known fact that there is abuse & waste in government, of course it multiplied in the Bush/Cheney years and a very monotonous mundane mechanism was utilized, the same 5-6 consulting companies and a handful of government contractors were awarded the multi year multimillion dollar projects based on their personal contract, agendas or whatever and of course many were rewarded for their unethical loyalty. It is known that one of the government contractors ex CEO would always award a contract to his personal friend who minted millions, with kick backs going to the contractors ex CEO and numerous Hollywood & government officials. The contracting companies CEO also bragged about getting 8 (a) certification based on personal connection for his brother. So this gentleman would win the big jobs from the major Government contractor & he would then sub contract it to an 8 (a) company which belonged to his company so all the loots were kept within the family. What a Great Model for Ethics!
So to halt the continuation of an obsolete & corrupt mechanism it would be wise to identify small companies with integrity, focused laser sharp approach; with n egos and a workforce that can deliver so the government does not have to pay to train the inexperienced workforce of their system integrators & consulting companies. Transfer of knowledge should begin day one and continuous monitoring and assessment of deliverables and timelines should be monitored and performance management matrix needs to be closely evaluated.
Again I am impressed to see that Secretary Eric Shinseki took these valuable steps and I guarantee billions of dollars could be saved if a thorough investigation and assessment is conducted across the board in all the government agencies. Government too can function in a effective and robust manner but officials and decision makers have to pull down the walls of the old culture which has only wasted tons of effort & tax payers dollars. We need to transform the workforce and build accountability at all levels. Eliminate redundancies, & dependancies of extensive use of consultants & contractors. It is a fashion along Virginia, DC & MD where every second person is a contractor and certified in schedule 70 or 8 (a) & have bodies who are laced with
all the latest certifications but unfortunately they fail to be efficient and create innovative capabilities & solutions. Mere on going certifications are just paper & a fad and these certified individuals collect an hourly rate but add no value to the outcome.
It is time to bring in new blood at the leadership, vision setting level, change the procurement process and also some of the old procurement officers who ae laced with personal windfall profits and a unethical mindset and also cast off the Beltway bandits and bring in new players.
Shama 07/20/09 01:20 pm ET
This along with alot of other wasted billions to beltway consultants should be redirected toward hiring more Americans who suffered the loss of employment due to the downturn in the economy.
Pedro Cruz 07/20/09 11:03 am ET