LaVerne Council, chief information officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs, highlighted the VA’s plan to buy cloud computing services and its other information technology modernization efforts during an interview with FCW published Friday.
She told FCW the department issued a request for information on cloud support services as part of a procurement strategy aimed at simplifying IT management.
“We are looking at the cloud as our way of bringing on some new [buying] capability,” Council noted in the interview.
“Our requirements may be a little more extreme than some, but certainly, if there’s an opportunity where we can [partner], we will.”
She said her organization is working with David Shulkin, VA undersecretary for health, to examine the viability of developing a new digital platform for the department to manage veterans’ electronic health records.
VA and the Defense Department also collaborate to achieve interoperability between their EHR systems, according to Council.
She added that VA will work to address all material weaknesses in the department’s information security program by the end of 2017.