Information technology is critical to the timely delivery of benefits and services to veterans, so President Bush’s fiscal 2009 budget request would increase Veterans Affairs Department IT programs by 19 percent over this year, Secretary James Peake said Feb. 4. A chunk of the IT spending would go for implementing an enhanced version of the department's electronic clinical health record system.
“It is vital that VA receives a significant infusion of new resources to implement new systems and upgrades to existing systems, which have a direct impact on the medical care of veterans, the quality and safety of that care, and the underpinning IT infrastructure that makes health care delivery possible,” Peake said in announcing the VA's budget.
Under the president’s budget, VA would receive $93.7 billion for 2009, $3.4 billion more than current spending, Health care and disability payments and processing would get most of the funding. Of the total budget, $47.2 billion is for discretionary funding, mostly for health care, and $46.4 billion is mandatory for other VA benefits for education, home loans and compensation.
In 2009, VA would intensify its collaboration with the Defense Department to provide high-quality health care and benefits to veterans, service members and their families, including progress toward the development of interoperable and secure electronic health records that can be used by both departments. The budget would also support implementing the recommendations of the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors, or the Dole-Shalala Commission, led by former Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) and Donna Shalala, Health and Human Services Department secretary in the Clinton administration.
President Bush created the commission after bureaucratic and administrative roadblocks to proper care for wounded soldiers at Walter Reed were revealed last year. The recommendations focus on soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The budget would support VA’s efforts to reduce its disability claims backlog, which could reach 872,000 claims awaiting resolution in 2009, by acquiring greater access to DOD’s online medical information, reducing VA’s reliance on paper-based claims folders and hiring new staff. By the beginning of 2009, VA expects to have hired 3,100 new staff members, Peake said. Resources requested also would allow VA to improve the timeliness of claims processing to 145 days, a 21 percent improvement over 2007. The number of claims processed will grow to 940,000, 14 percent more than in 2007, the agency said.
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