So that families and loved ones can easily locate gravesites and headstones, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) needs to ensure behind the scenes that its nationwide gravesite locator and find a cemetery feature—on which VA staff and Veteran families rely—is always up-to-date and easily accessible.

To this end, VA’s Office of Information and Technology (OIT) and VA’s National Cemetery Administration (NCA) are refreshing and expanding wireless capabilities across all NCA cemeteries and staff offices…

The wireless expansion is a component of VA’s major infrastructure modernization efforts in progress across NCA cemeteries and staff offices, which also include updating telephone systems and data networks. VA initiated the multi-year effort in fiscal year (FY) 2021 with upgrades to 21 sites. The OIT team continues to lead the effort to install wireless upgrades at 33 NCA sites in FY 2022 and plans to complete wireless upgrades at the remaining NCA sites in FY 2023.

“The updated IT infrastructure at Great Lakes National Cemetery gives staff the ability to more quickly and efficiently serve our Veteran community by allowing us to be able to connect to our Government devices via wireless with a more accurate reading for GIS/GPS devices. This gives us better accountability of our burial tracking system,” says Srey M. Austin, the cemetery’s director. “This update was needed and everyone, including the families and all our stakeholders, benefit from it. We are providing better customer service due to the upgraded IT infrastructure.” … Read the full article here.