VA's RSA failure part of bigger IT problem: report

The Veterans Affairs Department's failure of its Replacement Scheduling Application program is part of a larger, system problem related to the management and implementation of IT projects at the VA, says a new report from the department's inspector general's office.

Earlier this summer, the VA announced that it had put 45 IT projects—most of them involving software applications—on hold, as the projects were subject to internal review and a new project-management system. That preceded the late-August report from the VA's inspector general's office, which was issued in response to a request from Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), the ranking member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, who had asked for a review of both the award and administration of task orders issued by the VA to Southwest Research Institute. Those task orders were to develop the RSA development program, sometimes referred to as the scheduling replacement project. The project's beginning dates back to 2000, when the Veterans Health Administration decided to replace its VistA scheduling system because of the aging software and a 1998 General Accountability Office report that showed excessive waiting times for veterans.

In its review, the VA's inspector general's office found the program planning and oversight of the RSA project was either lacking or ineffective for three primary reasons: The VA lacked program and requirements planning; it does not have a staff with the necessary expertise to execute large-scale IT projects; and the responsibility for management of the project changed four times between 2000 and 2009.

“If VA had both experienced individuals to effectively plan and manage the development and implementation of complex IT projects, and an adequate system to monitor and identify program and contracting problems impacting the progress of a project, effective and timely decisions could have been made to either redirect or terminate the project,” the inspector general's office report said.

In addition to recommending that the VA develop both effective oversight systems and in-house staff, the inspector general's office report also suggested the department “fully engage” stakeholders and make them actively involved in decisionmaking; ensure that decisionmakers have sufficient technical and change-management knowledge to understand the effect of their decisions; and expand the number of VA contracting officers who have experience in large IT projects.

For its part, the VA said in a statement that IT is essential to transforming the department into a “21st-century organization that is people-centric, results-driven and “forward-thinking,” and that its new Program Management Accountability System will help ensure that the resources needed to deliver IT products are managed in a way that not only makes sure there is progress, but identifies and stops projects that are nonperforming. “This will ensure proper stewardship of taxpayer dollars while enabling us to deliver customer products to improve the delivery of service and benefits to the veteran,” the statement said.

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