“The Department of Veterans Affairs has detailed steps it has made to reconfigure its IT systems for more virtual private networks and telehealth capabilities in response to the COVID-19 pandemic — a move for which CIO James Gfrerer said there was no template.”
“’There were a number of actions we took to reinforce the enterprise and ensure we were responsive to this ‘black swan’ event,’ he said during a keynote address for an AFCEA Bethesda virtual event Thursday. ‘A black swan event is one in which none of our experience or knowledge really prepared us to address the challenges of the current national emergency.’”
“Both the U.S. and the world at large haven’t been forced to contend with a pandemic of this scope, and technologists across the federal government had no active experience attempting to reconcile modern IT systems with the strain imposed by social distancing and universal workplace shutdown.”
“The VA previously detailed how it’s had to adjust its medical supply chain via a centralized approach.”
“This was a particularly instructive moment for the VA, with COVID-19 acting as a sort of abrupt stress test of the agency’s various remote work and data-sharing capacities…” Read the full article here.
Source: Tech Reforms Ahead at VA to Meet COVID-19 Challenges – By Adam Patterson, May 29, 2020. GovernmentCIO.
