VA CIO: Legacy systems prevent change

Roger Baker, the VA's new CIO, has plenty of ideas about what information technology works and what doesn't for the Department of Veterans Affairs. He is certain of one thing: It won't be easy moving legacy systems into Web 2.0, he says.

"Looking across the government, it's not possible to move most of our legacy systems to new technologies," Baker said. "We should stop discussing how to move our 1970s-era COBOL systems into Web 2.0. It's not going to happen."

Baker spoke at an executive leadership panel on Tuesday in Washington sponsored by Government Executive and nextgov.com.

Government 2.0 is one of the many challenges that Baker is facing at an agency whose budget is completely centralized. He is also challenged by many years where the vast VA system was decentralized and out of control with no standardized rules for how IT should operate.

"VA has challenges. Almost every agency develops [systems] more productively than VA," he told the panel.

Among them are the long term backlog of applications for compensation benefits and President Obama's goal of developing an efficient electronic health record system.

For more on Baker's comments:
- check out this nextgov.com article