VA Information Technology: Improvements Needed to Implement Legislative Reforms - Government Accountability Office (GAO) report

VA Information Technology: Improvements Needed to Implement Legislative Reforms - GAO Report

Date:	July 7, 1998
Report No.:	AIMD-98-154
Pages:	34
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Subjects: Chief information officers Federal agency reorganization Information resources management Information technology Private sector practices Management reengineering Strategic information systems planning Systems conversions Systems design Summary: The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), has not fully implemented critical provisions of the Clinger-Cohen Act and other legislative reforms that provide guidance on how agencies should plan, manage, and acquire information technology. Although VA has taken some initial steps, it has not adequately implemented these legislative reforms. Specifically, the Clinger-Cohen Act requires agencies to analyze their mission-related and administrative processes, and on the basis of this analysis, review and improve these processes before making significant investments in supporting information technology. Although GAO's business process reengineering guide states that agencies should have an overall business process improvement strategy to accomplish reengineering, VA has not developed such a strategy. VA also has not yet defined the departmentwide integrated information technology architecture needed to efficiently utilize information systems across the agency.