VA CIO Forecasts In-House Mobile Apps Store

Veterans Affairs Department Chief Information Officer Roger Baker envisions development of an in-house application store for mobile computing, he said Wednesday at a press briefing, where he also announced that VA is on course to open up its network to smartphones and tablet computers by Monday.

Baker said he plans initially to hook up about 1,000 tablet and smartphone users, who will trade in their laptops or BlackBerry phones. He declined to specify the hardware VA will issue, except to say that both types of devices would run on the same operating system. In July, Baker said VA initially would field Apple iPhones and iPads, which use the same operating system.

Baker said he would like to develop a mobile application store "to aid the entire VA enterprise." He hoped some of those applications would come from the open source electronic health record software project launched last month...