2: Technology Investment

Invest in technology to increase productivity and reduce costs.

Other Information:

IT and business process innovation are central to commercial industry productivity and success. We experience this everyday in online commerce and in daily business and personal interactions. Yet, the public sector lags significantly behind the private sector in IT and business process innovation. This results in slower productivity growth and declining services to a citizenry that increasingly takes online mobility and information for granted in its private sector interactions. The federal government has the opportunity to accomplish its missions in a cost effective manner while providing the citizenry with expected levels of service by strategically using IT as a part of the solution. Based on commercial industry best practices, the government could potentially save up to $100 billion a year in federal outlays. This is depicted Exhibit 2. There are significant opportunities to apply innovation in the public sector and learn from private sector best practices. In a number of areas, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has done this. Other federal agencies, especially those with healthcare missions, can learn from what the VA has done, and even collaborate with them going forward, to facilitate data sharing, interoperability and end-use accessibility to modern data systems.

Stakeholder(s):

• Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)

Objective(s):

1

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