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Jon Stewart on the Delayed Defense-VA Health Record Decision

Comedian Jon Stewart, like me, can count to 30. Last night on his “Daily Show,” he skewered Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel for not making a decision on the integrated electronic health record system last week as promised.

Stewart, in a truly whacky bit, illustrated this point with a Chuck Hagel Advent Calendar that showed the iEHR decision deadline expired five (and now six) days ago. Both the Pentagon and the House Appropriations Committee answered “no” when asked whether a decision had been made (which Stewart demonstrated with a clip that defies easy description).

He then compared the lack of progress on the iEHR to the sophisticated computer operation run by President Obama in two campaigns to get out the vote, and suggested that if the same “urgency and enthusiasm” was applied to the iEHR, the problem could be quickly resolved.

This is Stewart’s second bit on the iEHR since March, sandwiched between two episodes on the VA disability claims backlog, , elevating what could have been just more bureaucratic waffling to a matter of national concern and discourse.

What About That iEHR Decision?

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is a real busy guy, and you really don’t want to impose a deadline on him.

But, he did tell a hearing of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee on April 16 that he would make a decision within 30 days on the plan for the integrated electronic health record, or iEHR, to be developed with the Veterans Affairs Department.

I can count, and that 30 days came and went last week. No decision yet, due in part, I hear, to conflicts over the basic approach to take -- adopt the VA’s Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) or go the commercial route favored by the Pentagon?

Either way, this is a big deal with billions of dollars at stake so I understand the delay. Will Congress have the same understanding?

VA National Cellular Contract Mystery Solved

When the Veterans Affairs Department awarded its $200 million national cellular contract on May 9, two key players -- Sprint and T-Mobile -- were mysteriously missing from a lineup that included AT&T Mobility; Verizon Wireless; and A&T Systems, a small business located in Silver Spring, Md.

Adam Nouravarsani, the telecommunications veep for A&T, told me his company had partnered with Sprint, T-Mobile, Alaska Communications and Verizon (to help that company meet the VA’s small business requirements), providing VA and its employees with coverage by all the major national carriers.

That’s important, as the department required bidders to provide widespread coverage , including in rural areas.

The VA cellular contract covers bundled airtime for both voice and data, as well as supply of gadgets, including voice phones, smartphones and tablet computers. Nouravarsani told me that the VA would decide what kind of devices it wants through task orders on the contract.

Navy Wants Some Good Anti-Terrorist Computer Games

The Naval Post-Graduate School in Monterey, Calif., wants to acquire a bunch of anti-terrorist games that can run on a variety of gadgets, including computers and iThings to support -- I’m not making this up -- its Combatting Terrorism Fellowship program.

Types of games NPS is looking for include:

• Terrorist ideologies and counter-ideology strategies
• Terrorist financing and counter-finance
• Insurgency mobilization and counter-mobilization
• Special Operations and counterterrorism military operations

NPS said that while it would consider commercial games, it “prefers games that can run on free and open source infrastructure.” No browser plug-ins or Java applets, please.

VA Takes a Brute Force Approach to the Claims Backlog

The Veterans Department has mandated overtime for its 15,000 employees who process disability claims in order to whittle down the backlog, which has drawn heat from Congress, veterans groups and even comedian Jon Stewart  on the “Daily Show.”

The mandatory overtime will run through Sept. 30, the end of the 2013 fiscal year. "This increased overtime initiative will provide more Veterans with decisions on their claims and will help us achieve our goal of eliminating the claims backlog,” VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said.

Allison A. Hickey, VA’s undersecretary for benefits, said, “We’re committed to getting Veterans decisions on their claims as quickly and accurately as possible, we need to surge our resources now to help those who have waited the longest and end the backlog.”

The VA had 843,061 claims backlogged as of this Monday, down 1,993 from 845,054 May 6. Claims pending more than 125 days stood at 566,926 on Monday, down 7,715 from 574,641 on May 6.

If you like money, drawing overtime sure is better than the furloughs most other federal workers face this year.