Fusing open-source and military intelligence is next big step in Army’s transition to information advantage
As the Army moves toward finalizing its new information advantage doctrine, its next major focus is better fusing open-source intelligence with the exquisite military sources it has traditionally relied upon, according to the service’s retiring top cyber commander.
Defense of the network, which officials have called one of the Army’s foundational weapon systems, must be underpinned by good information, which must come from integrating traditional military intelligence and commercial intelligence, Lt. Gen. Stephen Fogarty told FedScoop.
“What we’re seeing is the integration of traditional military intel, these exquisite capabilities, integrated with all this other information that is available,” Fogarty, the outgoing commander of Army Cyber Command, said in an interview.
Fogarty is retiring and handing the reigns over to Maj. Gen. (P) Maria Barrett in a change of command ceremony May 3.
The Army is finalizing doctrine setting in place the notion of information advantage with the ultimate goal of providing commanders with decision dominance to better sense, understand, decide and act faster. The concept has five main pillars: enable decision-making, protect friendly information, inform and educate domestic audiences, inform and influence international audiences, and conduct information warfare.
Fogarty said the Army added “inform” as a fifth mission thread alongside operate, defend, attack, influence, which is critically important in defending the network and denying the network to the enemy.
While there are some things only the U.S. military can do with its unique intelligence collection capabilities, Fogarty said it has gained an appreciation for the non-traditional sources of information and that power comes by fusing the two, not an either-or.
Commercial threat intelligence can be very helpful in tipping analysts to potential threats on the network, Fogarty said.
Commercial vendors have a global presence on millions of machines — places the military might not have collection on — and have the ability to report how a threat is presenting itself in an unclassified manner.
What this provides the military, Fogarty said, is immediately actionable information that can be used to block a threat while the traditional military intelligence can provide a deeper dive into the threat itself.
The key, however, is not for traditional military intelligence professionals to validate or duplicate what commercial sources are providing.
“What my traditional military intelligence can do is they can help refine who’s behind it. Why is this happening now? What’s the long-term objective for this?” Fogarty said.
To help fuse these intelligence disciplines, the Army created the Cyber Military Intelligence Group, which will blend military intelligence activities with commercial data and public information to support cyber operations.
“Over the last four years, we’ve worked that very, very hard” on that fusion, Fogarty said.
Additionally, the new Information Warfare Operations Center, which will provide an unprecedented real-time ability to sense and understand the global information environment, is helping to integrate capabilities and mission threads as well, he said.
New force proposals
Other changes Army Cyber Command is looking to make as it transitions to information advantage include a raft of proposals it has submitted for approval to the Army regarding new constructs for 1st Information Operations Command and information warfare task forces.
After supporting the Information Warfare Task Force in Afghanistan, Army Cyber Command learned some lessons regarding the importance of integrating cyber, electronic warfare, psyops, public affairs and space. During the Defender Pacific exercise last year, it tested some new concepts for supporting geographic Army service commands.
Specifically, Fogarty said the command deployed an expeditionary cyber team — one of an eventual 12 such teams as part of the 915th Cyber Warfare Battalion that will help plan tactical cyber operations for commanders and conduct missions in coordination with deployed forces — to the Pacific with liaisons to help augment the Multi-Domain Task Force. 1st Information Operations Command became the framework to operate across the Pacific throughout the exercise, building an information advantage task force embedded within Army Pacific headquarters.
The Army is taking the lessons it learned from that exercise to apply it to a similar task force in Europe that will support Army Europe and Africa — though, Fogarty said they aren’t trying to repeat the same model as the Pacific given it is a different theater. Rather, they want to be able to provide exactly what each theater needs.
“We said from the very beginning is we’re not trying to put the Pacific model in Europe, but we gained some relevant experience from the time we spent out in the Pacific,” he said. “That actually helped, I think, inform some of the options that we provided and some of the options that they selected. Then one of the things I think we’ve been really good at is this idea of build, assess, and then modify.”
Fogarty added they submitted several proposals to the Army that it is working its way through right now.
Industry groups call on lawmakers to support extra tech funding in FY23 appropriations
A coalition of industry groups has written to lawmakers, calling on them to support additional funding for technology modernization across federal agencies as part of the fiscal year 2023 appropriations process.
In a joint letter published Friday, the nine trade groups asked lawmakers to support either meeting or exceeding the $300 million requested for the Technology Modernization Fund by the White House as part of the President’s Budget.
The groups added that lawmakers in both chambers should support the provision of broader funding for tech modernization to ensure that agencies are able to meet zero trust goals.
“Funding is also needed to meet the government’s cybersecurity needs and goals. OMB Memorandum M-22-09, which follows the Executive Order on ‘Improving the Nation’s Cybersecurity’ (EO 14028), directs all federal agencies to mature their zero trust capabilities,” the missive said.
It added: “The additional funding should be made available for agencies that are just getting started on their zero trust journeys because these cybersecurity efforts are essential to maintaining a strong federal network defense posture for years to come.”
The Biden administration in March asked lawmakers to approve an additional $300 million in funding for the Technology Modernization Fund as part of the president’s fiscal 2023 budget request.
The request for extra funding came as the board of the federal IT investment fund continues to assess project proposals from federal agencies as it decides how to spend the remaining sum of $1 billion provided as part of the American Rescue Plan (ARP) 2021.
The joint letter was signed by the Alliance for Digital Innovation, Center for Procurement Advocacy, Computing Technology Industry Association, Information Technology Industry Council, National Defense Industrial Association, The Professional Services Council, Security Industry Association, Software and Information Industry Association and TechNet.
Energy Department launches council to coordinate AI activities
The Department of Energy established the Artificial Intelligence Advancement Council earlier this month to coordinate funding and development of algorithms and hold agencies accountable for how they are used.
A lean team consisting of five members, AIAC will quickly approve task forces, implementation plans and organizational changes for the AI & Technology Office, DOE Executive Secretariat, and AI Program Committee to execute.
DOE stood up the Responsible and Trustworthy AI Task Force ahead of AIAC’s first meeting, tentatively planned for June, to suggest departmental principles and practices, particularly around equity and ethics.
“We are very mindful of the fact that there are activities and initiatives that are underway, as well as initiatives that should be considered, in AI space,” AITO Director Pamela Isom told FedScoop. “And we’re also needing the support at the level that the council brings.”
As AITO director, Isom will have a seat on AIAC along with the following officials: under secretary for science and innovation, under secretary for nuclear security and administrator of security administration, Office of the General Counsel general counsel, and Office of Intelligence and Counterintelligence director. The two under secretaries will serve as council co-chairs.
One of the goals of the council is to hold agency leaders accountable for how their departments use AI, as well as overseeing the work of practitioners and researchers.
Meanwhile AIPC will consist of DOE agencies with an interest in AI that will help AIAC identify new task forces and implement solutions, like those in the climate and clean energy domains.
Both domains present opportunities for AI partnerships between AIAC and agencies within and outside DOE, industry and academia. DOE wants to replicate and tailor other agencies’ AI best practices, Isom said.
The National Nuclear Security Administration is also involved with AITO in standing up AIAC, though decisions surrounding it are more sensitive and therefore confidential, Isom said.
The Responsible and Trustworthy AI Task Force is already meeting, and the initial set of principles, practices and activities it suggests to AIAC will be taken up at the council’s first meeting.
“We need better AI independent verification and validation processes,” Isom said. “We need to improve the test processes.”
White House: Agency CIOs to play key role in Infrastructure Act implementation and oversight
C-suite IT leaders at federal agencies will play a key role in overseeing and implementing the trillion-dollar Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, under new guidance published by the White House.
The Office of Management and Budget on Friday instructed agencies to create cross-functional teams to monitor how the legislation is enacted. The teams will include chief information officers, chief information security officers and chief data officers from federal agencies, as well as other senior officials such as chief financial officers and customer experience leaders.
In addition to setting up expert oversight panels, each agency must designate a senior accountable official who will be responsible for the implementation of the spending law.
The White House has issued the latest guidance as it seeks to ensure sufficient oversight of the $1 trillion in public spending that was approved in November.
The guidance also includes the requirement that agencies embed sufficient equity expertise within the teams working on projects funded by the act. The equity expertise is intended to support the Biden administration’s executive order on racial equity and supporting underserved communities, which was signed in January last year.
President Biden is today meeting with about a dozen inspectors general and other officials as the White House seeks to make sure the spending plans receive sufficient scrutiny.
An administration official told Reuters that the federal government is working to hire about 8,000 people to implement the infrastructure law, with the majority to be hired in 2022.
OPM was quietly redesignated the point office for HR shared services
The Office of Management and Budget quietly redesignated the Office of Personnel Management the quality services management office for civilian human resources transactions March 30, after finding the agency better suited to stand up a modern IT solutions marketplace that includes commercial offerings.
OPM spent the last six months on the migration and is preparing to inventory agencies’ HR IT systems and modernization roadmaps.
The Trump administration originally designated the General Services Administration the HR quality services management office (QSMO) as it attempted to abolish OPM, but now the latter is heading up governmentwide HR shared services from enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms to point solutions.
The QSMO program was created in April 2019 to reform how the government works with shared services. Though the program, single agencies were designated as leaders in the provision of specific services to other government agencies and programs.
“Every agency feels like they need to have the features of a Lexus SUV, but they have the budget for a Toyata hatchback,” said Steve Krauss, interim director for the civilian HR transaction services QSMO, during ACT-IAC’s Shared Services Summit on Thursday. “They feel like they are falling farther behind as time goes on, and the reality is the only way to square that circle is through some sort of ride-sharing arrangement.”
The QSMO is focused on hiring assessment and data analytics solutions to start, the former to help agencies comply with the July 2020 executive order to modernize and reform federal hiring. Commercial hiring assessment solutions exist, as does OPM’s USA Hire based on a commercial solution contract.
On the data analytics front OPM may stand up a Human Capital Data Analytics Community of Practice across agencies with private sector participants.
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency‘s QSMO has already made two major shared services awards for a vulnerability disclosure platform service, which received its authority to operate (ATO) three weeks ago, and a protective DNS resolver service that received its ATO on Wednesday.
CISA is currently engaging with agencies and industry on how best to incorporate commercial solutions into its QSMO marketplace.
“We’re going to be turning a lot of focus to, for example, how can we partner with GSA on governmentwide vehicles,” said Branch Chief Jim Sheire. “How do we bring more commercial providers into the QSMO marketplace to provide those services to agencies?”
CISA has a request for information (RFI) out now looking at security operation services and how to implement them in a zero-trust context, in response to larger agencies with security operations centers seeking a “cereal aisle” of offerings, Sheire said.
The agency also released technical reference and architecture guidance on its Secure Cloud Business Applications (SCuBA) project a few weeks ago for public comment.
Meanwhile the newest QSMO, the grants QSMO within the Department of Health and Human Services, has engaged with all but two “very small” awarding agencies out of 49, said Executive Director Chad Clifford.
The QSMO closed an RFI in late March inquiring about commercial grants management solutions and services, data implementation, customer experience and potential acquisition strategies, and the responses are currently being evaluated by an interagency group of reviewers.
“How can we expand this marketplace by next year to bring on commercial providers, and where should we focus first?” Clifford said. “We know what the agencies need, but how can we do that now while maturing over time?”
The financial management QSMO within the Treasury Department‘s Bureau of the Fiscal Service just reached an agreement with GSA on a contract acquisition approach to populate its marketplace with commercial offerings, a special item number under the Multiple Award Schedule vehicle. Tech companies will be able to apply to participate in the QSMO marketplace starting in mid-May, said Reed Waller, financial systems advisor for the QSMO.
At the same time the QSMO is working to identify the best IT system candidates for modernization.
“We’ve collected an inventory of financial systems that I don’t think has ever existed before,” Waller said.
NOAA office with expanding space surveillance responsibilities names new chief
Space industry executive and former two-time White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Space and Aeronautics Director Richard DalBello is set to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Space Commerce, or OSC.
His appointment as director, announced by the agency on Wednesday, comes nearly 16 months after OSC’s last chief stepped down—and also as the office confronts weighty new responsibilities and prepares for what could be a massive budget boost proposed by President Joe Biden’s administration.
“Richard DalBello officially starts his new role on May 9, 2022,” NOAA Spokesperson John Leslie told FedScoop on Thursday.
OSC has operated as the government’s main coordinator and hub for space commerce activities for decades, and Its key mission is to foster technological advancement within the commercial space industry. The office also maintains operating licenses for private space systems.
More recently though, the office’s responsibilities have expanded to include a greater focus on modernizing and managing America’s systems for space situational awareness.
An influential memorandum on space policy signed by former President Donald Trump in 2018 essentially transferred the authority of monitoring space traffic and warning of potential orbital collisions from the Defense Department to OSC, within NOAA and the Commerce Department. That switch came partly because the number of satellites, tools and debris in that realm is growing exponentially as space commercialization booms. With all those items increasingly hovering around Earth, the Pentagon opted to move on from that mandate so it could place an even deeper focus on its space-based national security missions.
So far, Commerce has not acted so swiftly on this transition to governing Earth’s orbit, but Biden’s budget request for fiscal year 2023 commits roughly $88 million to OSC to make it happen. That marks an almost eight-fold increase from its 2021 enacted level of funding.
“This is an exciting opportunity and I appreciate the support and encouragement OSC is receiving from NOAA, the Department of Commerce, the White House and Congress,” DalBello said in the agency’s release. “Space safety and sustainability are two of the most critical issues facing the international community today and I am pleased the Biden administration has made these issues a priority.”
Having a new permanent director to help manage those millions, provided Congress approves that money, will also likely make a notable difference in this space surveillance operation. NOAA’s Leslie noted that the office’s last director, Kevin O’Connell, stepped down in January 2021, with the transition from Trump’s team to Biden’s. Mark Paese, the deputy assistant administrator of NOAA’s Satellite and Information Service, is serving as acting OSC director until DalBello assumes his fresh position.
Leslie said the agency will share more information regarding DalBello’s early priorities after his first day on the job.
Former Chief of Staff at the National Space Council Jared Stout told FedScoop that he has known DalBello for nearly 10 years and that he is a “brilliant, dedicated and extremely hard-working” official.
Commenting on OSC’s evolving responsibilities, Stout added: “I think we are going to have to see, ultimately, what they decide to do with the funding, but my sincere hope is that the roles and responsibilities of the Office of Space Commerce will continue to grow and that Congress will continue to empower the office.”
DalBello will enter the position with more than 3 decades of experience in the space industry, according to his LinkedIn profile. From 2013 to 2015, he was OSTP’s lead for space and aeronautics under former President Barack Obama—a position he also held during the Clinton administration. Most recently, he was the vice president of government affairs at space consulting firm GXO. And prior to that, he served as Virgin Galactic’s vice president of business development and government affairs, among other roles.
Stout, who is now the director of congressional and regulatory policy at Meeks, Butera and Israel, said OSC’s first priority under its new leadership “absolutely must be to stand up the civil space situational awareness system as soon as possible, with U.S. industry leading the way.”
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Army adding more procurement dollars for major electronic warfare programs
After zeroing out procurement funding last year for an important electronic warfare program that would allow brigade commanders to conduct jamming and limited cyberattacks from the air, the Army added $3 million for the project in its fiscal 2023 budget request.
The 2022 budget saw a cut in what previous budget plans had forecasted would be $12 million in procurement for Multi-Function Electronic Warfare-Air Large, a pod mounted to an MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone. The system is capable of serving as the first brigade-organic airborne electronic attack asset, and providing limited cyberattacks.
The system was designed to be used by combat aviation brigades.
It is the only long-range EW sense-and-attack program of record in support of long-range precision fires and assured positioning, navigation and timing, which is critical to closing capability gaps in the electromagnetic spectrum for multi-domain operations, according to the Army.
The $3 million will support the procurement of engineering and logistics services for two fielded systems, which are built by Lockheed Martin.
The Army didn’t include any other procurement funding for Multi-Function Electronic Warfare (MFEW) across the future years defense program (FDYP), a five-year budget projection of the Department of Defense’s investments.
The shift to multi-domain operations and evolving threats from sophisticated adversaries have pushed the Army to rethink many of its programs, MFEW included. The Army’s top acquisition official for the electronic warfare portfolio described a “prove it” phase for MFEW after the service zeroed out procurement.
“We’ve got to show that the MFEW capability can operate in a robust environment and potentially on platforms, not just the Gray Eagle, but looking at diversified platform set … and looking for how MFEW will operate before we make a commitment on how we’ll necessarily go after a capability like MFEW in the future,” Mark Kitz, program executive officer for intelligence, electronic warfare and sensors, said last year. “I think over the next year the Army is going to get some data and learn how this MFEW capability will enable how we want to operate in the future, and I think that data will then inform how we go forward with an MFEW-like capability.”
Despite the procurement cut last year, the Army still dedicated $12 million in research and development funding to the program.
Last year, the Biden administration did not provide FYDP numbers for any of its programs, making it impossible to compare what the Army thought it was going to spend in the out-years versus what was actually requested in the follow-on budget.
Now, the Army is looking to potentially update the requirements based upon the maturing concept for multi-domain operations, Ken Strayer, program manager for electronic warfare and cyber at Program Executive Office for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare and Sensors, told FedScoop.
The potential update was first reported by Breaking Defense.
Officials had previously alluded to a change in platform and units for the pod. The pod is platform agnostic and the Army had been working with other units such as the Multi-Domain Task Force in the Pacific to outfit them with it.
Strayer said the requirement is still for the pod to be mounted on the Gray Eagle, but demonstrations have proven it can operate from other platforms.
The requirement is to outfit combat aviation brigades with MFEW, Strayer said.
As for activities in the next fiscal year, Strayer said MFEW is scheduled to complete developmental and limited user tests to assess the system’s capability to operate in support of multi-domain operations. Based upon the results of the tests, scheduled for early fiscal 2023, the Army will make a limited fielded decision.
Fiscal 2023 Army budget documents note the service is not asking for any R&D funding for MFEW.
Officials have said that MFEW is part of an overall family of systems that when used in tandem are integrated to provide needed electronic warfare and cyber effects.
Another key program within this broader family is the Terrestrial Layer System-Brigade Combat Team (TLS-BCT), a Stryker mounted platform that will serve as the first integrated electronic warfare, signals intelligence and cyber platform for brigades. According to budget documents, it will provide “Indications and Warnings, Force Protection and Situational Awareness to influence the commander’s decision cycle, improve targeting timeliness and accuracy, and provide the maneuver commander with electronic attack and offensive cyber warfare options to deny, degrade, disrupt, or otherwise manipulate the targeted force.
The Army asked for $88.9 million in procurement dollars for fiscal 2023 for six TLS-BCT systems and $1 billion across the FYDP.
The Lockheed-made system is expected to begin fielding to units in fiscal 2022.
The Army is asking for $21.4 million in 2023 for R&D for the program, with an expected spend of $122.6 million over the FYDP.
In addition to TLS-BCT, the Army is also developing a program called TLS-Echelon Above Brigade (TLS-EAB). This system is capable of signals intelligence, electronic warfare and cyber operations and will be used by the Multi-Domain Task Force. As advanced adversaries are forcing the Army to operate across greater distances, it needs to be able to sense farther at higher echelons such as division and corps.
There are no procurement dollars for the system as it is still being developed, but the Army is asking for $29.6 million in R&D funds in 2023 and $85.7 million across the FYDP, which would go towards continued prototyping and integration.
The Army is also working on fielding its Electronic Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWPMT).
Described by officials previously as the glue holding all aforementioned electronic warfare capabilities together, EWPMT is a command-and-control planning capability that allows forces to visualize the potential effects of electronic warfare in the field and chart courses of action to prevent jamming.
Last year, the program underwent its initial operational test and evaluation and will be approaching a deployment decision scheduled in fiscal 2022.
The fiscal plan does not request any procurement dollars for the program but does designate $2 million for research and development in 2023 and $50.9 million across the FYDP.
Moreover, the program is nearing the end of its first contract where it delivered a series of capability drops, which were incremental software that built upon previous iterations.
Strayer said the program intends to award a follow-on contract for fielding, training, support and product improvement in late fiscal 2023.
The R&D funds will be used to maintain relevancy of the software, which includes sensor integration and networking capabilities, he added.
Following the deployment decision, the program will seek to upgrade units that have earlier versions of EWPMT to a baseline capability subject to availability of funding, Strayer said.
White House wants $550M for new critical munitions acquisition fund
President Biden is asking lawmakers for $550 million to establish a new Critical Munitions Acquisition Fund plus billions of dollars to replenish U.S. military stocks in the wake of multiple security assistance packages for Ukraine.
The initiative is part of a broader request for $33 billion in supplemental funding request for security, economic and humanitarian aid that the White House submitted to Congress Thursday.
The $550 million would help to “procure high-demand munitions for the U.S. and approved coalition partners, build critical war reserves, and expedite availability of munition systems,” according to the White House.
During a press conference Thursday afternoon at the Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III said the fund will allow the department to purchase and establish a “strategic reserve” of vital capabilities like anti-aircraft and anti-tank munitions, and enable the department “to surge for this crisis, and quite frankly, crises to come.”
Earlier this week after meeting with allies and partners at Ramstein Air Base in Germany to discuss long-term security assistance to Ukraine, Austin had noted the “tremendous demand that we’re facing for munitions and weapons platforms.”
There is a need to provide “staunch support to Ukraine while also meeting our own requirements and those of our allies and partners,” he said at Ramstein.
Of the $33 billion in supplemental funding requested Thursday, $20.4 billion would go toward additional security and military assistance for Ukraine and other U.S. efforts to strengthen European security in cooperation with NATO allies and other partners in the region.
That includes $5 billion in additional drawdown authority for transferring DOD stocks, $6 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, and $4 billion for the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing program.
The Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative directly supports Ukraine by funding the acquisition of critical defense capabilities and equipment.
A total of $5.4 billion in the package would help replenish DOD stocks of weapons and other systems provided to Ukraine.
Another $1.9 billion would go toward cybersecurity, intelligence and “other defense support.”
“This funding supports ongoing operational surges across multiple national defense components, including accelerated cyber capabilities, weapons systems upgrades, increased intelligence support, improving industrial base production capabilities for missiles and strategic minerals, and classified programs,” the White House fact sheet said.
An additional $50 million would go toward establishing a Defense Exportability Transfer Account to enable the Department of Defense to make more systems exportable and interoperable with coalition partners.
In a letter to Congress, Biden said: “Additional security assistance will put urgently needed equipment into the hands of Ukraine’s military and police, including ammunition, armored vehicles, small arms, demining assistance, and unmanned aircraft systems.”
He added: “There is no doubt that continuing to support Ukraine in this war against Russian aggression will require a substantial additional investment on our part. What I want to make clear to the Congress and the American people is this: the cost of failing to stand up to violent aggression in Europe has always been higher than the cost of standing firm against such attacks.”
The funding in the supplemental request would dwarf the $3.4 billion in security assistance that the United States has provided to Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24
According to the DOD, as of April 22 U.S. security assistance committed to Ukraine included: more than 1,400 Stinger anti-aircraft systems; 5,500 Javelin anti-armor systems; 700 Switchblade tactical unmanned aerial systems; 121 newly developed Phoenix Ghost drones; an undisclosed number of Puma drones; an undisclosed number of mysterious “unmanned coastal defense vessels”; and a slew of other capabilities.
There has been bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for providing security assistance to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion. However, lawmakers and others in the national security community have also expressed concern about the pace of the drawdown of DOD munitions stocks. They have called for additional investments to replenish them and bolster production capacity. The supplemental funding request put forward by the Biden administration is partly aimed at addressing those concerns.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comments from Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin at a Thursday afternoon press conference at the Pentagon.
VA clarifies scope of latest electronic health records outages
The Department of Veterans Affairs has clarified that two outages at Cerner’s electronic health records system earlier this week affected all federal government customers using the platform.
In a statement to FedScoop, a spokesperson for the department said a first incident on Monday lasted for 127 minutes, and that a second incident on Tuesday occurred for a total of 355 minutes.
During the downtime, users across the Department of Defense and Coast Guard as well as clinicians at VA centers were unable to access patient records through the system.
The outage on Tuesday occurred as lawmakers at a congressional hearing grilled VA technology leaders and Cerner executives over the future of the electronic health records systems. Cerner and the department are preparing this weekend to continue a previously delayed rollout of the EHR system to a third location at a medical center in Columbus, Ohio.
VA and Cerner define a system outage as an “unscheduled system event where the entire EHR solution becomes unavailable to users and/or downtime procedures are implemented.”
During the hearing, witnesses confirmed to lawmakers that outages had affected the VA’s Jonathan M. Wainwright Memorial VA Medical Center in Walla Walla, Washington.
VA Deputy Chief Information Officer for Electronic Health Record Modernization Laura Prietula said: “There was an outage today at Walla Walla … and an outage yesterday for 127 minutes due to load imbalance.”
According to the VA, all systems are now up and running, and Cerner is carrying out an analysis to determine what caused the issue.
According to the VA, a performance degradation occurs when “all EHR systems and applications are available, but users experience the system as ‘run slow’ (when compared to the baseline performance).”
The spokesperson added: “VA takes any instance of EHR degraded service seriously. No patient safety issues have been reported, to date, because of these two incidents.
The department “has protocols in place that allow providers to continue administering safe and effective care during downtime,” the spokesperson said.