[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/gimlet-eye.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]The Gimlet Eye has been in Observation Mode this week. But this handful of Dust-In-Eye necessitates a Benny Goodman-style Ray on another US governmental ‘fail’. When it comes to IT, the government admits…

Agencies Have Spent Billions on Failed and Poorly Performing Investments

Exhibit #1: FierceHealthIT summarizes five big ones out of a 51-page Government Accountability Office (GAO) report focusing on the inefficiency of agency IT initiatives–just in healthcare.

1. Veterans Affairs (VA) VistA EHR system transitioning to a new architecture: terminated October 2010 at a cost of $1.9 billion
2. VA-Department of Defense (DOD) iEHR integration: as previously written about, it collapsed under its own weight for another $1 billion [TTA 8 March]

3. DoD-VA’s Federal Health Care Center (FHCC). Opened in 2010 as a joint facility under a single authority line, but somehow none of the IT capabilities were up and running when the doors opened. ‘Jake, it’s ChiTown.’ Only $122 million.

4. DoD’s own EHR, AHLTA (no VistA–that’s VA’s) still doesn’t work right; speed, usability and availability all problematic. A mere $2 billion over 13 years.
5. VA’s outpatient system is 25 years old. Modernization failed after $127 million over 9 years before the plug was pulled in September 2009

You’ll need Iron Eyes to slog through the detail, but it is a remarkable and damning document. PDF (link)

but…there’s more. Excruciating, hair-hurting, and would be amusing if not so painfully, and expensively, inept. Malware Removal Gone Wild at Commerce… (more…)