Top VA Tech Official Pushes Agile Development

The Veterans Affairs Department should engage in more agile development in order to make more responsive and innovative programs, according to the agency’s top technology official.

Marina Martin, the chief technology officer at the VA, said Wednesday at the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association Bethesda chapter annual Health IT conference in Bethesda, Md., the agency needs to build fast and cost-effective prototypes in order to better understand and meet its program goals while designing services that patients and providers want.

She said an example would be to allow patients the ability to share their health data with third-party apps — such as fitness programs — and allow those programs to share that data with a doctor for better health management.