VA Adds iPhone, Android To Smartphone Mix

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will allow hospital clinicians and employees to use smartphones like iPhones and Android-based devices beginning Oct. 1 to access information from its electronic health records (EHR) system and other internal applications, according to CIO Roger Baker.

The move supports a trend by other federal agencies and organizations to explore the effect of employee smartphones--sometimes the device of an employee's choice--on their productivity as well as on IT costs and efficiency.

Currently, BlackBerrys are the only smartphones permitted for official use in the VA. On a briefing with reporters last week, Baker stopped short of saying whether he supports U.S. CIO Vivek Kundra's idea to allow employees to bring their own smartphones into the federal government and have them configured for security and access to agency applications, or if the VA would acquire them and hand them out.

He said is leaning toward the former because of time considerations, although it's "possible that we will have a large-scale acquisition of those kinds of products" in the future.