Department of Defense (DoD)

See the following -

Obama Administration Decides NSA Spying Is ‘Essential,’ But Oversight Of NSA Is Not

Andrea Peterson | The Washington Post | October 7, 2013

While the National Security Agency (NSA) has largely escaped the government shutdown, the panel investigating NSA spying practices has effectively been frozen. Politico reports that as of Friday, the five-member Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies lost its staff to the furlough associated with the government shutdown. Read More »

Obama Campaigns For Veterans' Mental Health

Scott Horsley | NPR | September 1, 2012

On Friday, President Obama was at Fort Bliss, Texas, where he spoke to troops and met with military families, including some who lost loved ones in Afghanistan. As that war winds down, the president is ordering additional help for those with invisible battle scars. A rash of suicides has shown mental injuries can be just as deadly as a roadside bomb. Read More »

Obama Takes More Flak for Tricare Rate Scheme

Kenric Ward | Sunshine State News | March 3, 2012

President Obama's plan to boost health-care premiums for active-duty and retired military personnel continues to take heavy fire, with Ron Paul and a third Florida congressman wading into the fight. To push more people into the private "insurance exchanges" designated under Obamacare, the administration wants to begin doubling or tripling charges for coverage in the military's Tricare program.

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Obama Win Means Continued Technology Focus At The Pentagon

Bob Brewin | Nextgov | November 7, 2012

Defense Department cyber, space and network systems will help anchor development of leaner and more agile forces powered by technology during the next four years if President Obama sticks to Pentagon plans unveiled early this year and follows his campaign rhetoric with action. Read More »

Obama's Budget Cuts Fed IT by $586 Million

Brian Heaton | Government Technology | February 13, 2012

President Barack Obama has slashed almost $600 million from last year’s federal IT funding in his fiscal year 2013 budget proposal. If enacted, the proposal would put total federal IT spending at just under $78.9 billion, a 0.7 percent reduction from fiscal 2012. Read More »

OMB Okays VA, DoD iEHR Data-Sharing Plan

Molly Bernhart Walker | FierceGovernmentIT | July 15, 2013

During a July 10 joint hearing of the House Veterans Affairs and Armed Services Committees, VA and Defense Department officials laid out plans to continue pursuing two separate electronic health record solutions with the ability to interoperate in the "near term." Read More »

On Capitol Hill, Concerns Remain About DOD-VA Interoperability

Aisha Chowdhry | FCW | July 13, 2016

Senate appropriators grilled top Veterans Affairs officials about whether the military and VA electronic health records systems are cooperating. VA CIO LaVerne Council, VistA Evolution Program Executive David Waltman and Veterans Health Administration Deputy Chief Medical Information Officer For Strategy and Design Jonathan Nebeker testified at a July 13 hearing before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee for Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies. DOD's director of the DoD/VA Interagency Program Office, Lauren Thompson, and Government Accountability Office Director for Information Management and Technology Resources Issues Valerie Melvin were also at the witness table...

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ONC Expanding Blue Button Capabilities

Sean McCalley | Federal News Radio | October 24, 2012

The Blue Button initiative has already let more than one-million veterans and active-duty troops download their personal health records. But the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information (ONC) has a larger audience in mind. Read More »

One Nation, One EHR –The Direct Project

CureMD | CureMD EMR Blog | January 8, 2013

The essence of Health Information Exchange (HIE) lies in easily accessible health information to improve the quality of care delivered by the healthcare community. Complicated formats intrinsic to many EHR systems are generally counterproductive to this basic nature of HIEs and can prove to be a hindrance against delivering quality care. So the natural question arises... Read More »

One U.S. Veteran Attempts Suicide Every 80 Minutes: Hidden tragedy Of Afghanistan And Iraq Wars

Staff Writer | Daily Mail | November 3, 2011

One U.S. veteran of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan attempts suicide every 80 minutes, according to new study. Read More »

Op-Ed: Open Data Policy Has Far-Reaching Implications For Health Care

Viet Nguyen and Rob Sax | Nextgov | January 10, 2014

In May 2013, the [OMB] released an executive order that requires federal agencies to use machine-readable and open formats -- in addition to data standards and other regulations -- for creating and collecting information. This new policy will have a significant impact on how public and private organizations access and leverage information. Read More »

Op-ed: The Human Side Of Cyber Threats

Audrey Taylor and Ben Knopf | Nextgov | May 29, 2013

The escalation of advanced persistent threats to federal systems has cybersecurity leaders rethinking their network protection and risk mitigation strategies. Nearly 50,000 incidents were reported by agencies in fiscal 2012, a 5 percent increase over the previous year. Read More »

Open Data Executive Order Compliance: The Bad And The Good.

Matthew Rumsey and Ginger McCall | Sunlight Foundation | December 2, 2013

The first major deadline for agency compliance with President Obama's open data Executive Order arrived this past Saturday. Agencies were required to, among other things, provide the Office of Management and Budget with an "Enterprise Data Inventory" and release a list of all their public data via a /data page on their websites. Read More »

Open Health Round-Up For 2014: Notable Articles, Reports, And Events

Even the hidebound field of health care can undergo a lot of change over the course of one year. Key health IT trends that I saw throughout 2014 are summarized in another article. Here I'll list some of the most notable articles and reports related to open source, standards, and transparency in health. Read More »

Open Letter to Chuck Hagel: DoD still doesn’t know what the hell they are doing

...I fear that you are paving a road to a hellish destination.  Rather than lifting up the VA eligibility problem to a shiny new common information system, you are on the verge of dragging health IT into the same bureaucratic vortex that has already done so much damage in the past.  AHLTA was declared “intolerable” in a Congressional hearing 4 years ago.... Read More »