Unopened iPad Stolen from VA as Program Launches

As soon as the Department of Veterans Affairs launched its program to allow Apple iPad tablets to be used on the job, an unopened one was stolen from an agency office in Washington, according to a VA senior official. But that will not deter the VA’s plans to integrate mobile devices into healthcare delivery.

The stolen device did not contain any veterans’ data, and it had not yet been taken out of the box or registered with an employee. “If it were, we could reach out and touch it and wipe it clean,” said the official, in an Oct. 26 briefing with reporters. The department has a mobile device manager (MDM) that can remotely wipe a device of data and applications when it is reported missing, but it is limited to the number of devices the department currently has...