Will this help or hinder the VA / Pentagon record logjam?

SPC Jan Allbright, M.Sc., R.S. — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 09:46:22 -0400

The team of 16 people from the U.S. Digital Service, a recently created division of top software engineers, set up an office inside the Defense Department on Monday, said Navy Cmdr. Bill Urban, a Pentagon spokesman.

http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/04/23/usds-team-health-veterans/26203635/

Tech team targets Pentagon-VA record sharing

A team of computer experts who helped fix the White House's healthcare.gov website after its botched rollout in 2013 is now working at the Pentagon

Response by GySgt Wayne A. Ekblad made Apr 26 at 2015 11:54 AM

GySgt Wayne A. Ekblad — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 11:54:33 -0400

I have to believe that it can't hurt anything!

Response by PO1 Glenn Boucher made Apr 26 at 2015 1:03 PM

PO1 Glenn Boucher — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 13:03:47 -0400

I m pretty sure that they can do a lot of good, but your going to hear about a lot of "lost data due to poor quality originals" or just plain "missing pages" of healthcare records. Hopefully they get it right, but I'm fairly certain there are going to be problems just because of the people working at the higher levels of the VA who will do their best to slow down progress.

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Apr 26 at 2015 2:34 PM

MAJ Ken Landgren — Sun, 26 Apr 2015 14:34:45 -0400

Are they proposing digitizing all the future VA records? That is a lot of work.

Response by MAJ Ken Landgren made Apr 27 at 2015 12:33 PM

MAJ Ken Landgren — Mon, 27 Apr 2015 12:33:11 -0400

Mr Allbright,

I don't know much about computer networks, but I can tell you about being on a team to consolidate all the branches on one platform.

1. Each branch had different and identical business rules to make it a complex problem.
2. Bad data would not transfer to the database.
3. Due to the complexity caused by different business rules of the branches, it was impossible to import all the data correctly into the consolidated database.

Response by SGT Rick Ash made Apr 29 at 2015 6:42 PM

SGT Rick Ash — Wed, 29 Apr 2015 18:42:18 -0400

After 31 years in IT as a Data Center focused Engineer ( Sales Consultant) I know it will help but they face a tremendous task. In 2013 alone there were 16.9 million veterans alive, going all the way back to WWII. My largest client, Dollar General only has 120,000 employees across more than 12,000 stores (and the corporate location) and they are approaching the limit Excel has for number of rows (1,048,516) for one application.

What tools are available to help the VA automate if Microsofts' largest database tool won't even come close to doing the job?

I hope the new team that fixed the Affordable Care Act website can help the VA too. I have been fighting the VA for 2 & 1/2 years for a service connected disability. On a given day I don't even show up in DEERS or OMPF for 6 years of service. 3 years as a 24K20 and 3 years as a 31D on three continents.