“… Patient scheduling is critical to providing veterans with timely access to medical care. The need to update the scheduling component of VistA is instrumental to VA’s efforts to achieve that goal. Although VSE is a relatively small program and represented a short-term fix, it only changed the look of screens. This seemingly small change was expected to significantly reduce the time it took schedulers to schedule appointments, however it failed to deliver on that promise and it cost over $6 million.This is another example of the struggles VA has in developing and managing information technology projects due to inadequate requirements, insufficient testing, and staff turnover. Having an effective program and project management structure in place is essential to its information technology efforts.” Read the full 7-page statement here.
Source: Statement of Mr. Larry Reinkemeyer During Hearing on The Future of VA Scheduling: Implementing a Commercial Off-the-Shelf Scheduling Solution at the Department of Veterans’ Affairs – September 26, 2019. VA OIG.
