VA Priorities for the Future

The President’s FY 22 budget request includes $113.1 billion in discretionary funding for the VA, a $8.5 billion or 8.2% increase from the FY 2021 enacted level.

The budget request includes $882 million for medical and prosthetic research to work to understand the impact of TBI and toxic exposures on long term health outcomes.

The budget request also includes $4.8 billion in total resources for the VA’s Office of Information and Technology (OIT) https://www.oit.va.gov to support veteran focused technology development, cloud modernization, and to continue to deliver efficient IT services.

More than $15 billion is designated for medical care for veterans in the American Rescue Plan. These funds would be used to increase funding for women’s health, mental health, suicide prevention, and veterans’ homeless programs. The budget request includes $2.1 billion for homelessness programs and also further support the VA’s efforts to address SUDs.

OIT has been rapidly scaling telehealth capabilities. Before the pandemic, the VA averaged about 25,000 telehealth visits per month but today, the VA routinely exceeds more than 45,000 telehealth visits per day. In addition, OIT has been working to create a range of apps and chat bots to assist with scheduling and answering routine questions.

OIT in conjunction with VHA, VBA, and the National Cemetery Administration has been developing new tools such as VANotify, a new paperless platform enabling the VA to send digital notifications out to veterans and their families.

An important priority for the VA was to roll out 5G coverages at Puget Sound, Miami, and Palo Alto facilities. This was accomplished by the VA partnering with AT&T-Mobile, and Verizon. In 2021, the VA will be experimenting with how 5G can enable wearable technology, telemedicine, virtual reality patient care, and clinician training. The VA is also moving forward by implementing industry leading data analysis and machine learning tools by leveraging the cloud native data analytics environment.

The agency is also exploring automation technologies such as robotic process automation, AI-based image processing, clinical decision support, and other techniques that will help streamline VA operations. The agency has been increasing reliance on APIs by working with the private sector in this rapidly expanding area.