IG Slams VA IT Shop - Again

The Veterans Affairs Department lack of in-house expertise to support, manage and execute complex information technology projects contributed to the near collapse of the department's efforts to develop a new replacement patient scheduling application at a cost of $167 million over eight years, the VA Inspector General said in a report released yesterday.

The VA IT shop also has a hard time keeping track of its contracts and statements of work, the IG reported.

Due to a lack of in-house capability, VA turned to the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) for help with engineering and application development for the replacement patient scheduling application (RSA) under an interagency agreement signed in November 2007, the IG report said.

The VA IT shop issued four task orders to SPAWAR for work on the RSA, but when the IG asked the program manager for copies of the statements of work for those task orders, he replied:

"I have not been able to locate anything regarding these 4 SOWs. The first and last were not technically assigned to RSA but were created to support RSA and HealtheVet from other parts of the organization. I have not received a copy of them and the person who created them is now gone."

The VA IT shop also could not find a task order contract run through the General Services Administration to "support all operational and technical requirements associated with the systemic analysis planning, and budgeting, and execution of IT investments."

One does wonder how the VA can even begin to attempt to manage development of complex IT systems if it can't even find copies of contracts or statements of work.

Roger Baker, the new VA Chief Information Officer, does have plans to fix the mess in the IT shop, but as more than person told me, the VA is like an aircraft carrier and does not turn on a dime.