VA claims computers taken offline
According to the Stars & Stripes, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs had to stop using their Veterans Benefits Management System which is supposed to be the panacea for the department’s claims backlog problem yesterday. Of course, the VA was optimistic that the system would be back up this evening, but it’s the 13th time it’s been taken down in the last six months.
Last week, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said officials are still in a “work out” period for the VBMS rollout, but he is confident the system and backlog plan are both on track.
“We continue to give capability with each update,” he said. “We’re doing it incrementally, being patient … get it stable.”
But Shinseki also said he expects the backlog to worsen before it improves, and would not give any time line for when veterans might see the numbers begin to decrease.
On Tuesday, House Speaker John Boehner sent his second letter this year to the VA demanding “a coherent plan, with benchmarks, deadlines, and specific measurements of progress, to address the backlog of veterans’ compensation claims.”
In it, he wrote the VA has not produced any evidence that the new VA systems will eliminate the backlog or improve claims processing.
I’ve watched the government buy document management systems before – it’s not a pretty sight. It usually takes someone who knows what they’re doing, but those folks never seem to be the ones assigned to the task.
Category: Veterans' Affairs Department
But this same government wants to accurately register and catalog over 800 Million firearms.
Nahh, I don’t see anyone going to prison due to a paperwork fuckup
Sure, the system and backlog plan are on track! The plan is to keep talking about it and never actually attend to the the backlog. Eventually we will all die and they can spend the next decades wringing their hands about how to annotate our files with that detail.
Yeah… ask yourself how many times DBIDS is down a week. And that’s for Active duty and retired folks. They have to bring in a fresh batch of hamsters every day because they forget to feed them or something.
I imagine those VA computers are duct-taped together and held up with baling wire; and I’d bet a bottle of good bourbon you’ll find “9600 BPS” on at least 1 item in the server room.
The Air Force wasted what, a Billion plus dollars on designing and constructing a whole integrated server system that, in the end, failed to meet even a fourth of the goals set and would require billions more to even attempt?
How much are we going to be charged to “fix” this, and how much did we spend on it already?
Maybe the government needs to stop shoveling money into private developers and have a home-grown IT security department design and build this stuff. Heck, what am I saying… soldiers can’t even peel their own potatoes anymore. We gotta pay someone to do that.
Nothing shocks m about the VA anymore. There is no rhyme or reason to anything they do or say. The entire Disability Process is a joke…. from the claim process to how they determine disability ratings to begin with.
As an IT professional, reading this kinda thing is just painful.
Jonn’s got the right end of it up there. To successfully plan and implement document management systems, or pretty much any system more complicated than a stapler, you need someone who knows what they’re doing. Those people never have any say in how something will be chosen, purchased or implemented. They don’t have a voice at the table in the planning process. They’re just given a plan and told…and I’ve been told this myself, “Just make it work for now”.
Jonn,I don’t think the VA has anyone who knows what they are doing. That may be their first problem.
#6 You’d think Systems Engineering was a racist term in the government.
@8
No money to be made on a successful system that works for a long time. Money’s made on the service agreement and “upgrades”.
Tango9, I work for DoD… it is
#10 Systems Engineer = Troublemaker
@11
That’s the truth. You start pointing out potential problems and suddenly you’re not “on board”. You’re not “a team player”.
I was an SE with about 3 years with a defense contractor. We were attending an SEIPT (Systems Engineering/Integration & Planning Team) meeting.
At one point I raised my little paw and my entire team nearly snapped their necks to turn and look at me wide-eyed, furiously shaking their heads “NO!” I wasn’t paying attention.
I said “Um, you know that’s not going to work, right? Because these guys are trying to but a square in a round hole and those guys won’t have the hole drilled for about 3 years.” Or the equivalent.
You’d thought I’d ushered in midgets, taken off my pants, jumped on the conference room table a dropped a deuce.
I received a sternly worded letter. Which I posted on my wall with “F U” sharpied in red on it. It remained there for the next 4 years till I quit (it was that or go insane).
I could go on for days about this crap. But 1 more: batteries.
You grunts, SF/SoF guys know exactly what I’m talking about.
But back to the computer systems/servers. The (and I use the quotes on purpose) “IT” guys they hire must have gone to school at Larry’s IT/discount liquor/Bait & Tackle Academy. The level 1 people nowdays seem to have 1 standard for hiring: Given photos of a horse, an apple pie and a computer, properly identify the computer. Worthless.
@14
Wait…how many guesses do they get? 5?
The configuration control alone, across the VA and its decentralized operations, would daunt Cthulu.
As for SE: heh! They’re more like Dr. Bones McCoy – one look at the architecture and they’re all “It’s dead, Jim.”
Hah! And a “participation medal”
well isn’t this encouraging, is this why they are getting all that new money; to fix something they bought broken?
…and a new beret.
if anything we bought in the private sector was down twice a month for six months, somebody would be in the parking lot headed for home…it’s amazing the level of waste and ineptitude that passes for acceptable work performance with some of these contracts.
It’s small potatoes compared to this, but I am holding a 100,000 dollar payment back because a piece of equipment delivered has failed to meet the quality standard that was promised. Not twice, not three times, not 12 times…just once. The agreement was it worked as promised and met the standard, when it didn’t no money paid out. They have 5 days to get it to standard or the equipment will be shoved off the loading dock into the parking lot where they can pick it up as scrap…
What’s so hard about setting a standard, or no payments are exchanged until it meets the standard or is replaced with something that will meet the standard?
@20
What’s so hard about setting a standard, or no payments are exchanged until it meets the standard or is replaced with something that will meet the standard?
It’s not that it’s difficult. It’s rather easy. It’s just unpopular. That vendor is someone’s buddy/uncle/cousin/golfing partner/etc. When that shit doesn’t work, it’s not the vendor who is going to get their ass chewed, it’s the one who reported it as unsat.
The famous term “used” to be: “Made by the lowest bidder”
These days its, “Made by a guy who I went to BOLC with, and will give me a job after I retire so I can make shitloads off of govt contracts just like he’s doing now.”
I suspect the VA was still using 1980’s computers.
without going into details(I did sign NDAs, and some of it’s SEKRET!!1!ONE): If you knew how completely inept the acquisitions (uniformed) side of the house was you’d have 2 safes full of firearms like I do and be scared poopless.
I worked on systems vital to steel on target that, if I’d been boots on the ground, and known the links and conflagamarations (I made that word up)necessary to keep me breathing, I’d have ordered a full retreat. More than once.
Duct tape and baling wire. No shit.
@20 No Payments, Hey they should be good at that ! 18 Months and waiting …