Jim Gfrerer, assistant secretary for information and technology and chief information officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs, told FCW in an interview published Friday about his team’s efforts to deploy a set of online platforms designed to facilitate the delivery of benefits to veterans under the MISSION Act.
“We were essentially trying to deliver what would normally take about 12 to 18 months of development in about four or five months. So the way we did that was very strict adherence to agile, delivering around a minimum viable product,†he said.
Gfrerer described the tech team’s experience in deploying the decision support tool, which is designed to assist the delivery of community care benefits to military retirees, and cited VA’s plan to certify the caregiver benefit program by summer 2020.
He also mentioned the department’s plans to monitor opioid prescriptions to veterans in compliance with the law’s provisions.
“Our clinicians need the data to be able to see where veterans are getting prescription medications and to make sure that they’re not overprescribing or enabling abuse,” Gfrerer said. “So we’re going to be delivering on a prescription drug monitoring program in the coming year as well.”