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The Veterans Affairs Department soft-launched a new online tool that lets veterans search for VA medical facilities and their average wait times within a specific mile radius. VA said it's a significant step in showing accountability and transparency efforts three years after wait time scandals in Phoenix shook up the agency's leadership and organization.
A Veterans Affairs Inspector General report caused the agency to take immediate action and rethink who it put in charge of the Washington, D.C. medical center. The report detailed serious deficiencies in inventory management, including surgeries and other procedures being performed with expired or possibly non-sterile materials, or postponed due to a lack of supplies altogether.
In one case, medical staff had to borrow bone cement from a vendor to finish two knee replacements.
The Defense Contract Audit Agency is beset by backlogs and other problems. Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president and counsel at the Professional Services Council, tells Federal Drive with Tom Temin industry has ideas that might help.
The FBI headquarters and Labor Department headquarters are just two exchange projects recently derailed. Auditors at the General Services Administration say the agency's Public Building Service must address several issues with the exchange program if it wants projects like those to be beneficial to the government and taxpayers.
Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney sent a memo to agency leaders outlining a series of long and short term actions agencies need to take around reducing the number of employees, improving how they measure employee performance and restructure their mission areas.
The 21st Century Cures Act, with rare bipartisan support, was supposed to modernize the Food and Drug Administration. The hiring freeze changed things up. Seth Rothman, a partner at the law firm Hughes, Hubbard and Reed, joined Federal Drive with Tom Temin to explain what may be happening now.
Agencies were scored for how easy it is to find and use email records, established email policies, and employee training. Agencies were also scored on whether there is a low, medium or high risk of not managing email effectively.
Agencies are on a regulatory budget. They've got to pull two regulations for every new one issued. The Patent and Trademark Office has put together a regulatory review working group. Nicholas Oettinger, who leads the group, fills in Federal Drive with Tom Temin.
Homeland Security Department management said they're now requiring documentation and life cycle cost estimations for all major acquisition programs. It's a big step for DHS. But while the Government Accountability Office says DHS has improved, it needs to focus on the details.
Larry Allen, the president of Allen Federal Business Partners, makes the case that contractors could face increased liabilities because of GSA's Transactional Data Reporting rule.
The Government Accountability Office recently hosted a panel discussion to talk about how organizations could foster collaboration to use analytics to tackle improper payments. Federal News Radio's Eric White spoke with Vijay D'Souza, director of GAO's Center for Enhanced Analytics, on Federal Drive with Tom Temin for a recap of the event and some of the topics covered.
Veterans Affairs Department employees are now answering 99.8 percent of veterans' calls to the VA crisis hotline, and fewer than 1 percent of those calls are rolling over to backup centers. But the VA Inspector General and lawmakers still see some troubling challenges.
The Internal Revenue Service continues to think of ways to modernize its IT systems and navigate the dangerous waters of identity theft and refund scams, —, even as the agency is being asked for a seventh year to tighten its belt.