“‘Veterans are the center of everything we do,’ said Department of Veterans Affairs Chief Officer for Modernization Surafeal Asgedom in describing the agency’s initiatives in the year ahead.”
“VA has undergone a period of rapid modernization since 2014, entailing broad reforms to the business lines of America’s largest civilian agency. These have focused primarily on improving customer experience, particularly through leveraging new technology toward augmenting quality of services as well as their ease of use…”
“Asgedom explained that redesigning the VA’s online portal has been foundational to these improvements, as the revamped website has allowed veterans to more easily access benefits and crucial information. This has resulted in a website that ‘is more consolidated and acts as a single front door’ to core VA services, he said…”
“Much of this has honed in on user-centered design propelled by active collaboration with veterans and their families, an approach that has informed the creation of new utilities like the VA’s newly launched Digital Compensation Claims tool — an application that streamlines what might be an otherwise complex benefits claims process.”
“Asgedom described the VA as uniquely well positioned to emerge as a development and implementation ground for breaking technologies in medical care, an area in which he sees the VA as taking an increasingly prominent role over the coming year. These have encompassed especially promising developments in both 3D medical printing and AI-enabled research and diagnostics…”
“Looking to the future of VA modernization, Asgedom expressed confidence the agency’s developments will not be solely kept within the VA, but will rather be used to inform modernization across the federal government…” Read the full article and watch the video here.
Source: VA Modernization Chief Lays Out Blueprint for New Year – By Adam Patterson, January 31, 2020. GovernmentCIO.
