The Veterans Affairs Department will likely not request additional information technology funding for fiscal 2012, its chief information officer told a Senate panel Oct. 6.

"We will request no increase--sorry, I'm not allowed to talk about the president's budget--but I would not anticipate the VA requiring an IT increase going into [fiscal] '12," said VA CIO Roger Baker while testifying before the Senate Veterans Affair Committee.

The VA is the only cabinet department in which the CIO has authority over the entire department's IT spend--approximately $3.3 billion in fiscal 2010, which ended on Sept. 30. The department requested a similar amount for fiscal 2011, but Congress has yet to approve any federal agency spending bill and is keeping the government funds only via a continuing resolution.

Baker also said that the VA could propose that Congress link IT spending to the VA health care budget. "We are constrained in our ability to meet the health demands by the fact that we're not tightly tied, that we have a separate appropriation for IT," Baker said. A legislative proposal would not break "down what we've accomplished by centralizing IT management," he hastened to add.

Baker said the department has a new get-tough attitude toward contractors, as demonstrated by its Sept. 3 issuance of a sources sought notice to companies potentially interested in replacing IBM (NYSE: IBM) on a $9.1 million contract for developing a process claims system for vets suffering Agent Orange-related ailments. The contract called for IBM to meet a milestone within 45 days, but the company missed it. On the 46^th day, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki telephoned IBM CEO Samuel Palmisano, Baker said. "They didn't understand that it's not business as usual," Baker added. "I can assure you they got the message."

Baker also appeared to endorse an open source model for the department's electronic health record, the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture, known as VistA. An open source model would bring "back the innovation that made VistA the best electronic health record system in the country," he told the panel. The department released a request for information in August for white papers on the viability of open source software as a component of the VistA architecture.

However, one witness before the committee offered reservations about the adoption of open source into VistA. Tom Munnecke, who helped program the first iteration of VistA in 1978, said in his written testimony that the computer language used to code the application, MUMPS, was the "key to success of VistA."

 Health IT systems programmed in other languages have been failures, Munnecke added.

"Yes, MUMPS is an old language, but the fact that it has enjoyed all of this success bears close scrutiny by those seeking to replace it," he said, adding, "Question: Is the weakness of the current VistA due to MUMPS, or the VA's management of development process?"

For more:
- go to the hearing webpage (webcast embedded on page; so are links to prepared statements)

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