Digital Government

Hot GPS Meeting This Week

Former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger will chair a <a href=http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-9880.pdf>meeting</a> of the National Space Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Advisory Committee Advisory Board at the Chevy Chase Pavilion Hotel in Washington on May 14 and 15. I have a feeling it will be a hot one.

Digital Government

The AHLTA Definition Contest

As dedicated <em>What's</em> fans know, AHLTA, the Defense Department's electronic health record system, used to be known as an acronym standing for the Armed Forces Health Longitudinal Technology Application.

Digital Government

Familiar Faces On Baker's Bench

At the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing on the nomination of <a href=http://techinsider.nextgov.com/2009/03/waiting_on_va.php>Roger Baker as chief information officer</a> of the Veterans Affairs Department on May 6, committee chairman Daniel Akaka, D-HI, asked Baker to introduce any of his friends in the audience.

Digital Government

The Budget: A 'Scintillating' Read

The fine print and programmatic details of President Obama's proposed fiscal 2010 budget runs 1,380 pages in an appendix, with each and every page worth a perusal, OMB director Peter Orszag told a press briefing this morning.

Digital Government

Future Combat Systems Minus Vehicles

As expected, the Obama administration took a budget axe to the Army Future Combat Systems program. It chopped all of the project's eight manned ground vehicles from the program for a savings of $22.9 billion, according to the <a href=http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/TRS/>Terminations, Reductions and Savings section</a> of the proposed fiscal 2010 federal budget released today.

Digital Government

Missed Buying an Enigma Machine

I like serendipity when it happens -- especially when it concerns something as odd as the current head of the National Security Agency and the German World War II encryption device known as the "<a href=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enigma_machine>Enigma Machine</a>."

Digital Government

VA Explains Vonapp Delays (Sort Of)

The Veterans Affairs Department told me on Tuesday that <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090501_2347.php>delays</a> veterans experienced in accessing the <a href=https://vabenefits.vba.va.gov/vonapp/main.asp>Veterans OnLine Application</a> (Vonapp) Web site on May 1 resulted in part from a 10-fold increase in traffic to the site that day, the first day veterans could apply for a benefits under the post-9/11 GI bill.

Digital Government

How's That Front End Tool Workin'?

The Veterans Benefit Administration has a <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090504_1368.php>mess of tech problems</a> on its hands with the near collapse of its <a href=https://vabenefits.vba.va.gov/vonapp/main.asp>Veterans OnLine Application</a> and an inability to handle documents that vets have to attach to their applications.

Digital Government

An 'Open Enough' E-Health Record

Lt. Gen. Eric Schoomaker, the Army surgeon general, said he wants the Military Health System to develop an electronic health record that's "open enough" to exchange data with civilian clinicians who provide care to military personnel and their families under the Defense Department's TRICARE health insurance plan.

Digital Government

What Feds Need Masks?

During a Thursday afternoon Web cast on the swine flu with top federal officials from the Health and Human and Services Department, the Homeland Security Department and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano received an e-mailed question from a Transportation Security Administration worker wondering about the use of face masks.

Digital Government

The Swine Flu Web Talk Show

The Obama administration has deployed all kinds of nifty <a href=http://whatsbrewin.nextgov.com/2009/04/fighting_swine_flu_online.php>Web tools</a> to inform the public about the current outbreak of swine flu - which the Health and Human and Services Department now calls the H1N1 variant of influenza - including a Web cast this afternoon with top federal officials in a format most Americans find comfortable: a talk show.

Digital Government

Honorary Pest?

On Tuesday night, as I watched more than a squad of high-ranking folks called to the stage for induction into the Military Health Systems Honors Society, which was held during the farewell dinner for S. Ward Casscells, assistant secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Arlington, I thought someone had made a mistake.

Digital Government

Big-Time Broadband For Afghan

President Obama plans to send <a href=http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0219/p01s01-usfp.html>17,000 more U.S. troops</a> to Afghanistan this year, boosting total U.S. forces in that country to more than 40,000. Other NATO countries, primarily the United Kingdom, have sent about another 20,000 troops.

Digital Government

Fighting Swine Flu Online

The Health and Human Services Department <a href=http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2009pres/04/20090426a.html>declared</a> a public health emergency on Sunday due to a limited outbreak of swine flu in California, Kansas, Ohio, Texas and New York, as well as Canada and New Mexico.

Digital Government

The Soviet Encyclopedia, AHLTA Style

I've been poking around for a couple of weeks on a story that, in 2001, the Naval Medical Center in San Diego had developed a low-cost way to integrate the Defense Department's Composite Health Care System (now called AHLTA, <a href=http://whatsbrewin.nextgov.com/2009/03/ahlta_maybe_not_a_noun.php>maybe not a noun</a>) and the Veterans Affairs Department's electronic health record system, the Veterans Health Information System and Technology Architecture (VistA).

Digital Government

A Galaxy of Cyber Four Stars?

The Army and Air Force CIOs -- Lt. Gen. Jeffrey A. Sorenson and Lt Gen William L. Shelton -- would only get a one-star bump. But since Allen is a one star, BG, this could mean a three-star jump for him -- unless some folks don't think the Marines qualify as a fill-fledged service because they are part of the Navy.

Digital Government

NSA, Margaret Mead and Green

When you think about organizations celebrating Earth Day - today, April 22 - the National Security Agency does not immediately come to mind.

Digital Government

The Long Road to Acquisition Reform

In 1994 then Sen. William Cohen released a report titled "Computer Chaos: Billions Wasted Buying Federal Computer Systems." The report resonates even today with the release this month of a Defense Science Board <a href=http://www.acq.osd.mil/dsb/reports/2009-04-IT_Acquisition.pdf>report</a> calling for the Defense Department to reform its information technology acquisition practices.

Digital Government

IG On VA/SPAWAR Contract Mess

I have picked up some pretty good intelligence that the VA inspector general has just finished a report detailing mismanagement of contracts that the department's IT shop farmed out to the Space and Naval Systems Center.

Digital Government

Update: VA Patient Scheduling Debacle

The Veterans Affairs Department plans to conduct a "rigorous four moth review of potential options" for its long delayed $167 million <a href=http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090331_5665.php>patient scheduling system</a>, which crashed last month, a VA press secretary told me.