The Department of Veterans Affairs’ office of inspector general (OIG) has recommended that the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) establish and implement standard operating procedures to improve scanning and indexing of non-VA medical records into the electronic health records system.

“These procedures should clearly define all [Health Information Management] and community care staff responsibilities and the procedures for accurately scanning, importing, and indexing non-VA medical records,” according to the OIG report.

VHA should ensure that HIM officials provide and delegate training, quality assurance monitoring and quality checks for community care personnel with oversight of health record management operations.

The recommendations were made after the inspector general found that community care personnel did not always accurately encode non-VA records into the EHR system and that VHA facilities lacked standard procedures with defined responsibilities for staff.

“Inaccurate indexing of medical records poses a risk to veteran care and increases the burden on VHA staff who have to locate and correct the errors, reducing their time for other tasks,” the report reads.

A report by Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington, D.C.-based public policy think tank, recommends that Congress and the Biden administration create a national advanced industry and technology agency to oversee programs and policies meant to help the U.S. ensure its industry leadership.

“This new agency, ideally at least as large as the National Science Foundation (NSF), would lead a number of core tasks, including analyzing U.S. industry strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and responding with well-resourced solutions, including support for domestic research and development (R&D) and production partnerships and investment in advanced research facilities,” Robert Atkinson, founder and president of ITIF, wrote in the report published Thursday.

The document suggests that the proposed agency – NAITA – should be composed of five divisions: data and analysis; advanced industries; emerging technologies; innovation systems; and cross-agency and cross-government coordination.

NAITA should oversee the development of a national advanced industry and technology strategy and help pursue industry competitiveness by coordinating an interagency process to align programs and policies within federal and state agencies and international organizations. A Senate-confirmed director appointed by the president should chair NAITA, according to the report.

“Advising the director would be a board of 15 to 20 members, with at least two-thirds of which from industry, with others including industrial strategy experts, venture capitalists, and leading engineers and scientists,” the report reads.

Defense Secretary and 2021 Wash100 Award recipient Gen. Lloyd Austin said at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing the U.S. should put more money into technology research, deployment and repurposing efforts to confront China's pacing challenge, DOD News reported Thursday.

Austin told panel members that President Biden's $715 billion defense budget request for fiscal year 2022 would continue to fund traditional space, aircraft and shipbuilding programs at the Department of Defense (DOD). He added that allies and partners across the globe will play a role in the country's asymmetric advantage goal.

"I would just tell you that one of the strengths of the United States of America is that we have a lot of allies and partners who want to work with us," the defense secretary said.

Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and four-time Wash100 Award recipient, told the same committee that investment efforts in the proposed FY 2022 DOD budget and the department's joint warfighting concept “will pave the way for a Joint Force of the future.”

Veritone announced on Thursday that the company has been awarded a new U.S. patent for its Conductor technology that performs dynamic artificial intelligence (AI) model orchestration through the use of a proprietary deep neural network (DNN). 

“A little more than a decade ago, there was only a handful of enterprise-class AI engines, but today the variety of AI engines in the market is enormous,” commented Chad Steelberg, Veritone co-founder and CEO. 

“The aiWARE operating system with its hundreds of ready-to-deploy AI models simplifies model deployment and scaling, and the addition of Conductor further accelerates the Veritone mission to democratize AI, speeding project deployment while boosting model performance and reducing compute cost,” added Steelberg.

The company’s aiWARE-based conductor technology uses the power of its DNN to quickly analyze data sets and apply the most optimal AI models available to that data set. The patented functionality is more than simply efficient model selection. The DNN uniquely looks at multiple data set features across vision, speech, text, and data sources and orchestrates a portfolio of AI models to yield the most optimal results.

The Conductor technology is designed to ingest data, extracting key features of that data, then review the features of interest and apply any previous learning to select the most accurate AI model to use on that data set from all available models in the aiWARE operating system. 

“Siloed single-engine AI solutions will not age well as new faster, cheaper, and more accurate engines come on the market. Many companies will see their ‘modern’ AI solutions become antiquated and costly to use,” said Al Brown, Veritone chief technology officer.

“aiWARE’s Conductor technology takes the guesswork out of selecting the right engines for the job with its dynamic learning and application of AI models to unique data sets.”

Veritone has a significant funnel of pending patents and Patent No. US 11,017,780 is Veritone’s 14th U.S. awarded Patent. 

The U.S. Army demonstrated a launcher designed to autonomously fire missiles at maritime or ground-based targets, Defense News reported Wednesday.

The wheeled Autonomous Multidomain Launcher rolls out of transport aircraft then fires missiles, like an autonomous counterpart of the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System. The demonstration took place Wednesday at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona to exhibit how AML would contribute to multidomain operations.

Brig. Gen. John Rafferty, who leads the Army’s efforts to modernize long-range precision fires, said the 18th Field Artillery Brigade ran the demonstration for over an hour. The system fired seven rockets to simulate the range of the future Precision Strike Missile.

Reps. Michael Waltz, R-Fla.; Deborah Ross, D-N.C.; Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas; and Frank Lucas, R-Okla., have presented a bill to produce a strategy for the country's science and technology pursuits. 

The National Science and Technology Strategy Act of 2021 would task the National Science and Technology Council and the Office of Science (NSTC) and Technology Policy (OSTP) to deliver a comprehensive strategy on national S&T, the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology said Monday.

NSTC and OSTP would quadrennially assess the U.S. science and technology scene and produce a corresponding national strategy. The President would also annually report to Congress on U.S. research priorities and science and technology trends across the globe.

“This bill requires a whole of government strategy for technology and innovation to maintain United States leadership and national security,” Waltz said.

Leonor Tomero, deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear and missile defense policy, said the military will review its missile defense approach to address related, growing challenges, DOD News reported Wednesday.

She told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces that the Department of Defense (DOD) will assess its strategies, technologies and policies that compose how the military defends against missiles of China and other adversaries.

“The department will continue to ensure that we bring a more integrated approach to air and missile defense to address various types of ballistic missile threats and enable defense against cruise missiles and unmanned aerial systems,” she said.

Tomero made her statement with regard to the missile defense budget request for fiscal year 2022. DOD’s planned missile defense investments include missile detection sensors, such as those designed to track hypersonic weapons, she said.