Inspector general finds more problems with BearingPoint pilot

The Department of Veterans Affairs is paying BearingPoint Inc. $4 million a month to develop the agency's financial management system, but so far the pilot at one of the VA's biggest hospitals has been a disaster, according to an inspector general's report.

The interim report, issued March 19 by the agency's inspector general, states that employees are not being properly trained at the Bay Pines VA Medical Center in St. Petersburg, Fla., to use the system and that 81 surgeries were cancelled since November 2003 because critical surgical supplies and instruments were not available or properly sterilized.

The report also states that significant work still had to be done on the project known as the Core Financial and Logistics System (CoreFLS), such as involving VA employees in testing procedures and improving interconnectivity with other medical center systems.

Delays in implementing CoreFLS at the VA's 170 hospitals will drive up the costs of the system, the report states.

"Many of the problems with the CoreFLS project resulted from the manner in which the project is managed," the inspector general wrote in the report. "We found that data conversion needs management attention, employees need sufficient training to use CoreFLS and management needs to implement prior recommendations to improve the functionality of the CoreFLS system."

BearingPoint officials had no immediate comment on the report.