VA'S handling of tech contract riles lawmakers
$543M contract is managed in part by Austin-based officials.
Frustrated lawmakers took aim at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ handling of a troubled technology contract with Austin connections on Tuesday, demanding discipline for employees who might have bungled the $543 million contract and blasting the agency for its lack of transparency.
The 2012 contract, managed in part by Austin-based contracting officials, was supposed to allow the VA to digitally track hospital equipment to save money and keep unsterilized equipment out of operating rooms. But it has been beset by delays and accuracy problems, and the VA’s internal investigators recently concluded the department exercised poor oversight.
It’s the latest in a series of infor- mation technology blunders by the VA, and on Tuesday the House Committee on Veterans Affairs also probed the failed “Catamaran” project, a $275 million contract to manage hospital supplies using predictive analytics that was terminated in 2016.
“There’s not a more perennial issue of disappointment to me”
than the VA’s chronic information technology problems, said U.S. Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Lubbock. “I have heard I don’t know how many stanzas of the same old song, but this is getting really old.”
The stakes are set to get even higher. The VA might soon enter its largest IT contract ever, a proposed project to modernize health records that could cost up to $16 billion.
Rep. Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., called the problems with the real-time locating system to track equipment, or RTLS project, which were first revealed in an American-Statesman investigation last year, “beyond unacceptable.”
Lawmakers repeatedly asked VA representatives about who inside the department had been held responsible for the contract problems. Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., demanded a list of all disciplinary action resulting from the RTLS and Catamaran contracts.
Tammy Czarnecki, the VA’s assistant deputy undersecretary for health for administrative operations, said she believed there had been “accountability throughout the entire process,” explaining: “I believe we held the vendor accountable as well as our own staff . ... The staff was required to work through the process with the vendor.”
The contract was originally awarded to Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Services, which has since become DXC Technology.
But lawmakers were livid that a 2016 settlement agreement — which reduced the number of facilities receiving the RTLS technology by almost half, delayed the contract at least a year and absolved the contractor of liability — had not been made available in full to the VA inspector general’s office.
“This is unbelievable. Anybody embarrassed here?” said Rep. Bruce Poliquin, R-Maine. “We’re losing our pants on deals, and then we relieve them of responsibility?” VA officials later said they would hand over the settlement agreement.
When first proposed at the VA, the RTLS system was considered to be at the leading edge of new supply tracking technology, but that has since become increasingly common at hospitals and clinics across the country. Hewlett-Packard blamed problems with the contract’s poor performance on the VA’s weak Wi-Fi.
It’s unclear when or if the VA will bring the RTLS technology to other facilities once the revised contract expires, or whether the VA will reach its June target date. Czarnecki told lawmakers 60 facilities are already using RTLS technology to track surgical equipment.
The VA did not respond to questions from the Statesman after the hearing.
“The goal posts have been lowered,” Bergman said. “But can they be met?”