The Department of Veterans Affairs and DoD continue to make progress on a pilot project for a joint, integrated hospital in Chicago, the Captain James Lovell Federal Health Care Center (FHCC), but IT delays have proven costly, GAO has said.
It said that for six integration areas all provisions have been implemented such as establishing a governance structure and patient priority system, while others such as quality assurance and contingency planning remain in progress. However, despite an investment of more than $122 million for IT capabilities at the FHCC, VA and DoD have not completed work on all components required by their executive agreement, which were to have been in place in time for the FHCC’s opening in October 2010.
These delays have resulted in additional costs and administrative burdens for the FHCC because of the need for workarounds to address them, according to GAO-12-669.
It said there also are other IT capabilities required by the executive agreement that are ill-defined and for which plans have not been established.
The VA and DoD generally agreed with recommendations to determine the costs associated with the workarounds, develop plans with clear definitions, specifications, deliverables, and time frames for IT capabilities required by the executive agreement but not yet defined, develop and agree to an evaluation plan, to include all performance measures and standards to be used in evaluating the FHCC demonstration, and, establish measures related to the cost-effectiveness of the FHCC as part of their evaluation.
