IG faults VA for mismanagement of IT project
The failure of the VA's RSA project is due more to systemic IT management problems than to contracting issues, according to a new report from the IG's office.
The Veterans Affairs Department’s systemic management shortcomings are to blame for the failure of its Replacement Scheduling Applications development program, according to a new report from the department’s Office of the Inspector General.
VA started the project n 2001 but shut it down in March 2009 after spending more than $120 million without producing deployable scheduling software. The goal had been to develop a new system for patient scheduling.
VA executives did not conduct appropriate program and requirements planning, allowed requirements to shift several times, and conducted inadequate procurement oversight, according to Mark Myers, Division A director for the inspector general’s Office of Contract Review.
Compounding those problems was a lack of management expertise in handling major information technology programs in general and a change of leadership for the project four times between 2000 and 2009, Myers wrote in the report, issued Aug. 26.
Overall, Myers said the VA's management issues were more to blame than acquisition oversight.
“Although procurement oversight was lacking, the failure of the RSA Development Program was not primarily rooted in contracting issues; rather, it was due to issues surrounding VA’s management of the RSA program and the manner in which VA manages major IT initiatives, in general,” Myers concluded.
“In our opinion the failure of the RSA project is linked to larger systemic problems relating to the management and implementation of IT projects within VA,” Myers wrote.
The HealtheVet initiative also complicated the software development for the patient scheduling project and contributed to delays and changes in project direction and requirements, the report said.
The replacement scheduling project was at risk from the beginning, and when VA officials became aware of the problems, they utilized an interagency agreement with the Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center in 2007, the report said. However, the VA did not perform adequate oversight over the work being done by SPAWAR and has difficulty identifying exactly what SPAWAR had done and who had done it, the IG report said.
The IG's report did not contain a response from VA officials, and department officials were not immediately available to comment on the report.
The inspector general recently reported on poor ethics practices and breaches of authority at the VA's IT office.