VA CIO Surveys His Department's IT Hits and Misses

As large government organizations go, the Veterans Affairs Department has been an example of what to do and what not to do for large enterprise technology deployments. Although it has endured its share of missteps and scandals, in recent years, VA has become a model for how federal agencies can streamline and modernize their network architectures.

Much of this success can be credited to VA’s CIO. Nearly two years into the job, Roger Baker has overseen the consolidation of the department’s IT infrastructure, begun moving applications to the cloud, and pressed ahead with efforts to more productively share medical data with the Defense Department.

The move to consolidate VA’s disorganized IT systems began and was largely complete before Baker took office. But the centralization has served as a platform to enable most of the department’s ongoing IT deployments. VA now has a single infrastructure operating one standard e-mail system, which provides standardized configurations for desktop and laptop computers.