VA Health IT Programs Receive Federal IT Innovation Awards

June 17, 2019 - Nine health IT programs implemented by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) were recognized during the FedHealthIT Innovation Awards held June 12 in Washington, DC.

The nine VA health IT programs are:

Solor uses off-the-shelf software to convert complex language into user-friendly terminologies. This represents a shift in how software developers consume terminology, enabling collaborative improvement in medical knowledge, patient care, patient safety, and healthcare interoperability.

Veterans Signals (VSignals) is a continuation of the VOICE veteran experience program and is an effort by VA to create an enterprise-level customer experience solution for the collection of veteran feedback used to improve the veteran experience.

Benefits Integration Platform (BIP) is a cloud-based IT platform that improves the way VA manages and provides veteran benefits, healthcare, and memorials.

Light Electronic Action Framework (LEAF) is a solution for digitizing paper-based forms. LEAF enables any VA user to streamline business activities, increase transparency, and enable real-time data and status tracking.

Enterprise Software Asset Management Program tracks and manages IT software assets throughout their life cycle, enabling VA to reduce costs, identify trends, and improve software investment decision making. 

Digital Transformation Center improves VA’s ability to support veterans through incremental improvements in IT capabilities. An agile development approach enables a regular cycle of capability upgrades and enhanced functionalities by leveraging software as a service, platform as a service, and other cloud-based technologies.

Vet360 provides veteran contact information. After verifying their identity, veterans can add or edit their contact, personal, and military service information via the VA.gov website. Correct contact information is important for VA healthcare (prescriptions, appointment reminders, and lab and test results), disability compensation, pension benefits, claims and appeals. 

VEText is a mobile solution to remind veterans of upcoming healthcare appointments through text message. The goal is to offer veterans a way to confirm or cancel appointments. VEText has reached over 6.15 million veterans, processed more than 1.76 million cancellations, and has helped decrease the overall national no-show rate by nearly 2 percent.

Lighthouse, VA’s application programming interface (API) program, enables VA partners to build veteran-centered applications. In the last year, VA launched a developer portal and APIs for benefits submission and tracking; navigation to and information on VA facilities; electronic verification of veteran status on commerce, job, and third-party benefit websites; and better access to and visibility of veterans’ health information, ranging from allergies, diagnostic reports, and lab results to medications, procedures, and more.

“One of the cornerstones of VA’s modernization is IT innovation,” said VA Secretary Robert Wilkie. “We are proud to receive these awards and look forward to continuing our advancements in IT to allow us to better serve veterans and their families.”