Veterans Affairs officials want veterans to be able to access their services on mobile devices. They also want to boost employee productivity with mobility. But developing business-grade apps is no simple matter. Kathy Frisbee, co-director of Connected Health in VA's Office of Informatics and Analytics, has developed a rigorous app methodology that any agency could use. She joined Tom Temin and Emily Kopp on the Federal Drive to discuss the first fleet of apps the agency has developed.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki says he's angry and saddened. But, he told Congress yesterday he has no plans to resign over reports that delayed medical care may have led to the deaths of dozens of veterans. Federal News Radio's Jared Serbu reports. Read Jared's related article.
More than half of senior executives surveyed by the Senior Executives Association are reporting "low" or "very low" morale with their jobs. The problem lies with a pay-for-performance system where some supervisors make less money than the people they lead. Increasing numbers of senior executive service members are ready to leave the federal government altogether.
The House passed the GI Tuition Fairness Act of 2013 on Wednesday that includes an amendment to stop all bonuses for senior executives at the VA for five years. The chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee says it will instill some much-needed accountability to the department.
The Veterans Affairs Department has paid out $200 million in wrongful death suits to 1,000 families over the past decade. That number brings up questions about the quality of care in VA centers. VA says it investigates every preventable death. It says they represent a tiny fraction of the people who receive care at its medical centers. Yevgeniy Feyman is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute specializing in health care policy. He told Federal Drive hosts Tom Temin and Emily Kopp how VA's death rates compare with all hospitals.
On this week's On DoD, Jared Serbu talks to Eric Jeffries, chief diversity and inclusion officer at Exelis; Zachary Hearn, the deputy director for benefits at the American Legion; and Alan Chvotkin, vice president at the Professional Services Council.
With a budget in place for the rest of the fiscal year and a topline in place that makes most people think 2015 will be a lot like 2014, agencies are getting back to long-term planning and priority setting. One of the areas the Department of Veterans Affairs is setting its priorities for...is acquisition. Glenn Haggstrom, VA's principal executive director of the Office of Acquisition, Logistics and Construction and acting chief acquisition officer for the Department of Veterans Affairs, told In Depth with Francis Rose one of his major acquisition priorities for 2014 has actually been around for a while.
"Inside the DoD's Reporter's Notebook" is biweekly feature focused on news about the Defense Department and defense community as gathered by Federal News Radio DoD Reporter Jared Serbu.
The Blue Button Initiative started at VA as a way for veterans to more easily access their health care data. But, with the help of Presidential Innovation Fellows, the initiative is now enabling American people across the country to access their personal health records in a human-readable format. Federal News Radio examines the project's greatest successes and where it's headed next as part of our special report, Solving Our Nation's Toughest Challenges: The Presidential Innovation Fellows.
The Veterans Affairs Department reduced the number of pending disability claims by 267,000 over the last year. Veterans are also waiting 119 days less than they did a year ago for their claims to be processed.
The Veterans Affairs Department promises to be "digital by default." The new initiative seeks to provide better and faster service to veterans. The department is hiring experts from outside the government to build the technology to streamline offerings. Marina Martin, VA's chief technology officer, tells Federal Drive with Tom Temin and Emily Kopp the effort goes beyond simply tackling the persistent backlog of disability claims.
Cash, drugs and science experiments are all part of VA's fiscal 2015 budget request.
The departments of Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland Security account for 94 percent of the growth in the number of civilian employees within the federal workforce, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.
Kenneth Siehr of the Department of Veterans Affairs wins this year's SAVE Award. His cost-cutting proposal involving mail-order prescriptions to veterans also saves time.
With the launch of VA Open Data, members of the public and applications developers will be able to access non-sensitive, non-personal information from the Veterans Affairs Department.