Summary: This testimony focuses on the status of the Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) efforts in seven areas of its information technology (IT) program: improving its process for selecting, controlling and evaluating IT investments; filling the chief information officer position; developing a strategy for reengineering its business processes; completing a departmentwide integrated systems architecture; tracking its IT expenditures; implementing the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) Decision Support System and the Veterans Benefits Administration's (VBA) compensation and pension replacement project; and improving the department's computer security. Progress has been made in some of these areas, such as IT investment decision-making and selecting a chief information officer. In other areas, plans have changed--the Department no longer plans to develop an overall strategy for reengineering its business processes to function as "One VA," nor has it defined the integrated IT architecture needed to efficiently acquire and use information systems across VA. No uniform mechanism is in place throughout VA that tracks IT spending; instead, VA's different offices use various mechanisms for tracking IT expenditures. VHA's Decision Support System and VBA's compensation and pension replacement project continue to face challenges. Although VA has begun to address computer security weaknesses, it will have few guarantees that financial information and sensitive medical records are adequately protected until it develops and implements a comprehensive, coordinated security management program.
