Federal News Network: The Importance of VA Supply Chain Modernization
The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is currently in the initial stages of a modernization effort central to the agency’s mission, which is to develop a strategy to completely redesign and modernize its supply chain.
The VA Supply Chain manages the flows of all goods, services and information between stakeholders, including within the VA, external suppliers and service providers, all the way to the Veteran, who is the ultimate customer.
Every service the VA provides will be affected by the modernization effort: prosthetics, pharmacy, IT, medical/surgical supplies, medical equipment, facilities, burial and benefit supplies. It’s a massive yet necessary lift. Based on initial indications it seems clear the VA is being comprehensive and thoughtful in its approach. The VA can’t simply replicate a private sector solution – in many ways its supply chain environment is unique.
But the private sector can certainly help. The VA is being very open to hearing from industry about how to modernize their supply chain. Rather than going for a “big bang” contract that tries to incorporate every requirement so early in the process, the VA is creating a mechanism for industry to share supply chain best practices and encourage innovation in a test environment to evaluate solutions, explore incremental changes, and continuously improve before embarking on a large-scale deployment.
These are some of the themes of a recent editorial published by Federal News Network, written by Gregory Giddens and David Whitmer. Giddens is the former chief acquisition officer at the Department of Veterans Affairs, and Whitmer is chief strategy officer at DSS, Inc., and a board-certified health care executive with 30 years of public health experience at the National Institutes of Health and the Veterans Health Administration.
The article stressed that no single company is going to provide everything needed for VA Supply Chain modernization. It’s going to be a multi-vendor effort and will require strong compliance project management, consistent communication and transparency with all stakeholders. It must be done in a way that improves the delivery of services to Veterans, while also improving the systems and tools used by the VA employees who work so diligently to serve them.