Senator Patty Murray (above) is the Chair of the Senate Budget Committee and serves on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Her office issued the following Friday:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Murray Press Office (202) 224-2834
Friday, June 6th, 2014
VETERANS: Murray Joins Bipartisan Group of Senators to Urge Administration to Accept Free Private Sector Help to Fix Broken
VA Scheduling System
In letter to President Obama, Senators urge top-level private sector review of VA systems
WASHINGTON
– U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member of the Senate
Veterans’ Affairs Committee, joined a bipartisan group of nine U.S.
Senators to call on the
Obama Administration to accept private sector assistance in fixing the
broken Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) scheduling system. In the
letter, Murray along with Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA), Mike Johanns
(R-NE), Richard Burr (R-NC), Al Franken (D-MN),
Marco Rubio (R-FL), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), and
Michael Bennet (D-CO), urged the VA to follow the example of the Army,
which in 2010 allowed a consortium of leading technology companies to
provide expertise in designing a
corrective plan, at no cost to the taxpayers, to fix widespread data management issues uncovered at the Army’s Arlington National Cemetery.
“Because
of the immediacy of the many challenges at the VA, we urge you to work
with us to implement a similar cost-effective, private sector initiative
so we can
begin restoring the trust of our veterans and the American public in
the ability of the VA to meet the commitments our nation has made to our
veterans. Our military men and women, their families, and our veterans
deserve nothing less.”
“Engaging
the tech sector and the best minds from leading American IT firms
produced a comprehensive business plan to help the Army modernize its
workflow procedures
and upgrade the data management systems at Arlington. That effort,
conducted at no cost to the taxpayers, represented the very best
traditions of corporate citizenship,” the
senators wrote.
Full text of the letter is below, and a PDF of the signed letter can be accessed
here.
June 5, 2014
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW
Washington, D.C.
Dear Mr. President:
Like
most Americans, we are outraged at the documented misconduct at the
U.S. Veterans Health Administration that has caused our military
veterans
to face long waits when seeking the medical care they have earned.
That some veterans actually have died while waiting for needed care adds
urgency to our efforts to act immediately. While last week’s
preliminary Inspector General’s (IG) report indicated
this is a systemic problem that dates back many years, it is our
responsibility to take swift, decisive action now.
The
IG report details widespread information technology challenges that
enabled many of the unacceptable and inappropriate use of scheduling
gimmicks and outright fabrication of performance metrics at the VA. We
should be able to move quickly to begin restoring confidence in the VA
by addressing these technology and data management problems in the
current scheduling system.
This
is a crisis that requires immediate action, and we recommend enlisting
the expertise of the private sector to provide an assessment and
recommendations for improvements to the current IT and workflow
challenges at VA. By calling on our best minds across the private
sector in a pro bono demonstration of solid corporate citizenship, we
could create a blueprint for achievable action the VA should
undertake within 60-to-90 days. Our veterans deserve this quick action
on these urgent issues.
We
already have an effective template that sorts through most of the legal
and process issues to allow this type of private-sector assistance.
For example, a 2010 Inspector General’s investigation revealed
widespread mismanagement at the U.S. Army’s Arlington National Cemetery,
including misplaced and mishandled remains of our warfighters. The IG
report also revealed that Cemetery managers continued
to rely upon decades of vulnerable, hand-written paper files in
managing burial records. A consortium of technology companies operating
under the auspices of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Northern Virginia
Technology Council (NVTC) jumped in quickly to provide
their services and expertise at no cost to the taxpayer. This task
force ultimately worked with the Army to create a legal framework that
enabled the Army and Arlington National Cemetery to accept their pro
bono help.
Engaging
the tech sector and the best minds from leading American IT firms
produced a comprehensive business plan to help the Army modernize
its workflow procedures and upgrade the data management systems at
Arlington. That effort, conducted at no cost to the taxpayers,
represented the very best traditions of corporate citizenship.
We
are confident that private sector expertise from across the country
could be assembled to provide a similar pro bono service to help fix
the challenges at the VA, and we stand ready to assist the
Administration in moving quickly to help empanel this group.
Not
every problem requires a government solution. Because of the immediacy
of the many challenges at the VA, we urge you to work with us to
implement this cost-effective, private sector initiative so we can
begin restoring the trust of our veterans and the American public in the
ability of the VA to meet the commitments our nation has made to our
veterans. Our military men and women, their families,
and our veterans deserve nothing less.
###
Kathryn Robertson
Deputy Press Secretary
Deputy Press Secretary
Office of U.S. Senator Patty Murray
154 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington D.C. 20510
202-224-2834
