Nextgov

First, the good news. The Senate Veterans Affairs Committee today unanimously approved the nomination of Roger Baker as assistant secretary for information and technology and chief information officer at the Veterans Affairs Department.

Now the bad news for Baker, who held a CIO gig at the Commerce Department in the Clinton administration: He has toughest CIO job in Washington.

Bake has three goals. First, he must meet VA Secretary Eric Shinseki's promise to turn the department into a 21st century organization that relies heavily on automated processes. Second, and this one is truly a daunting task, he must tackle a bunch of inherited problematic IT systems, including VA's eight year, $167 million effort to develop a patient scheduling system, which all but collapsed this April. Third, Baker needs to ensure that VA has in place this summer a partially automated system to quickly process the rich educational benefits under the new, post-9/11 GI bill.

This week I learned that Baker is a member of the Ashburn, Va., Canasta Club, and I wonder if he will still have time for it in his new, demanding job.