The Veterans Administration Backlog: A cautionary tale for IT professionals

There is tremendous controversy over the backlog in the processing of claims by the Veterans Administration. There are charges and counter-charges about how bad it is, how quickly, or slowly, it is being addressed, and who deserves blame or credit.

But an undeniable fact stands out amongst the arguments: a claim is considered backlogged when it has been pending 125 days or longer, and there are over 600,000 of them.

One of the technical problems that is cited repeatedly, is the lack, or failure, of interfaces between the databases of the various federal agencies that need to coordinate in order to effectively serve our soldiers and veterans. Sadly, I am not surprised. Effective, data transfer interfaces (particularly in health care systems)  are often the weakest links in the system — but this is totally unacceptable.

We owe everything to our veterans, and this is a disgrace of the highest order.

As IT professionals, this undeniable debacle has particular lessons for us and we should feel an extra bit of communal shame because of it. This situation is a stark reminder that our work truly does effect lives, in the most fundamental and important ways. And if we want to take the credit when we do amazing things for society (and I write about those plenty) we better be willing to man up and deal with the problems as well.

I cheer on those working to improve the current situation. And I urge us all to take on our respective roles working on information systems with the utmost respect for the people whose lives we will impact.