"VETERANS, OUR MOST IMPORTANT CUSTOMERS,
ARE EXPERIENCING BETTER PROTECTION OF THEIR
DATA, PERSONAL TIME SAVED, AND ARE REAPING THE
BENEFITS OF TRANSFORMATIVE IT."
THE VA OPEN API PLEDGE AND LIGHTHOUSE
The pledge encourages health care providers to work
collaboratively with VA to increase the mapping pace of
health data to industry standards. This mapping will enable
VA to then provide secure Application Programming
Interface (API) access to Veteran data via the Lighthouse
program that gives private sector developers the secure
access they need to build helpful tools for Veterans. For
example, Veterans may now access their health records
on iPhones via a Health app built on this new platform.
We are pushing forward with these radical transformations
because they are improving the customer experience,
which is Secretary Wilkie’s top priority—and in OIT, it’s
ours too. Veterans, our most important customers, are
experiencing better protection of their data, personal time
saved, and are reaping the benefits of transformative IT.
Like any large IT organization, we have our share of
challenges. From my perspective, we must address our
technical debt—an inhibitor to IT modernization efforts. As
with financial debt, technical debt becomes more burdensome
and more difficult to pay down as the debt accumulates.
For example, if we wait too long to upgrade the simplest
tools—laptops, servers, routers, and software—and spend
more money on sustaining aging systems than we are on
modernizing them, we add both complexity and cost to
our transformation. We also deny ourselves a modern IT
platform on which to build innovative technologies like
artificial intelligence and robotic process automation.
We are beginning to address this technical debt. Assistant
Secretary for Information and Technology and Chief
Information Officer James Gfrerer and I lead an outstanding
team of IT professionals who are fortifying our offices
in Strategic Sourcing, Information Security, Account
Management, Quality Assurance, Performance Management,
and Risk Management. We are buying smarter and managing
better. We are opening an in-house digital services team,
hiring an enterprise architecture and data technology staff,
and expanding outreach to cutting-edge high-tech firms.
As the son of a World War II Navy Veteran, and the nephew
of seven Veteran uncles, one of whom was among the U.S.
forces at Normandy on D-Day, I am proud and honored to
serve at the VA. This is an ideal time to work for VA OIT
or to work with VA OIT. As a world leader in health care,
benefits and claims processing, and property management,
VA has remarkable IT employees, products, and processes,
but more importantly, we have a mission that fires us up:
serving the Veterans who have served our nation.
MEET DOMINIC CUSSATT
Dominic Cussatt is the Principal Deputy Assistant
Secretary / Deputy Chief Information Officer
(CIO) at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Dominic is the highest ranking career civilian
IT executive overseeing a $4B IT organization
supporting a $220B Fortune 10-sized nationwide
Health / Benefits / Memorials / Facilities
management agency.
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