VA plan for upgrading Wi-Fi at hospitals hits concrete

The Veterans Affairs Department literally ran into a wall with an ambitious plan kicked off in 2008 to install upgraded Wi-Fi networks at 236 hospitals and clinics nationwide, according to internal probes, top agency officials and contractors.

VA planned to use the networks to track equipment using real-time triangulation and to support its administration program, which uses Wi-Fi bar code scanners to ensure the bar code on a prescription package matches the one on a patient's wrist band.

While the power output of broadcast radio stations is measured in thousands of watts, Wi-Fi access points transmit at a maximum of 200 milliwatts, which limits their range to about 120 feet indoors and 300 feet outdoors.

That range, VA Chief Information Officer Roger Baker told a hearing of the House Veterans Affairs Committee last weeks, is further limited by the concrete walls commonly found in the department's medical facilities.

Asked by Rep. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., why VA had cost overruns on the $91.4 million Wi-Fi contract awarded to Catapult Technology Ltd. in October 2008, Baker replied: "We underestimated the concrete and metal in our buildings . . . thick concrete blocks signals." Speaking last week at a hearing of the Oversight and investigations subcommittee, Baker said the walls required installation of more access points to provide 100 percent coverage.

Though Catapult had a fixed-price contract, it included an engineering-change clause that covered installation of additional access points, which Baker called "the major cause of cost escalation" on the Catapult contract.

The number of access points required to provide 100 percent coverage in any building can be determined only by a detailed site survey, the VA Office of Inspector General said in a March report on the Catapult contract. But the IG report said VA performed only a cursory site survey, "which contained essentially no information on site conditions."

VA also grossly underestimated the square footage of its installations, including the Buffalo, N.Y., medical center, when it developed the Wi-Fi contract, the IG said. The department understated the square footage in Buffalo by 750,000 square feet, and as a result, Catapult needed to install an extra 412 access points.

Baker said VA now has the Catapult contract on hold, after completing installation at 45 facilities, and plans to issue a new one but did not provide a time line.

Dave Lyons, Catapult's senior vice president for technology and management solutions, said a site survey of every facility is essential, as every VA facility is unique. "The old joke is that if you have seen one VA facility, you have only seen one VA facility," Lyons said.

He recommended that, in its next contract, VA separate site surveys from installation, with contractors bidding installation at each facility after the site survey.