Page 26 - FCW, May 2021

Digitally Transforming the Customer Experience
JACK GALVIN
Associate Deputy Assistant Secretary, Office of Information and Technology, IT Operations and Services, Department of Veterans Affairs
A technology leader talks about what the pandemic taught the VA about telehealth, telework and the ability to innovate quickly
How did the VA expand access to telehealth during the pandemic? Pre-pandemic, we had a pretty robust telehealth program and the technology to support it. We were handling about 2,400 or so video connections between providers and veterans on any given day. But during the pandemic, that increased by about 1,700%. Now we have around 40,000 clinical video encounters a day.
Obviously, one of the first things we had to do was expand our capacity. We did that with our existing solution, and we also introduced a scalable option
in the cloud. It’s very quick to expand if we need to, and it certainly helped us stay ahead of the unprecedented demand that we experienced.
Telehealth helped us maintain that continuity of care and connection between our veterans and our providers. Some 3.8 million video encounters were performed during fiscal year 2020. All that interaction allowed veterans, as well as providers who couldn’t travel in, to respect social distancing protocols while at the same time allowing us to maintain our mission to provide care to our veterans.
How did the VA support an increase in telework during
the pandemic?
Before COVID-19, we had a pretty large implementation of telework, somewhere between 40,000 and 50,000 daily participants, but obviously that increased enormously with the pandemic. Now we support upwards of 100,000 to 120,000 on a daily basis. As with telehealth, we expanded what we had and introduced scalable options in the cloud as well.
We also looked at alternatives like
being able to allow secure access when employees are using their own devices. We’ve introduced some solutions and augmented the ones we already had to allow that. However, we did acquire over 200,000 laptops so that we would be ready to outfit those who needed one to connect remotely.
As it pertains to productivity
and engagement, we went all in on collaborative tools like Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex. I think we were one of the largest single implementations of Teams, with almost 500,000 desktops. People have really taken to it, much like they’ve taken to telework and telehealth.
What advice do you have
for other agencies?
We certainly learned that it’s important to have scalable options. And it’s very important to be in sync with those you serve, to understand what they need and then have the ability to pivot quickly on the infrastructure side. Nothing stifles innovation quicker than not being able to scale a good idea. And certainly the VA is huge. It’s all about scale.
The currency of the day is speed — the speed to deliver new functionality or a new experience to veterans or to providers to help them provide care more quickly. We really need to make IT an enabler so that we’re able to quickly say, “Yes, we can do that.”
My advice is to focus on scalable platforms and getting technical debt under control so you’re always ready, and to recognize that the purpose of IT is to add value, not for IT’s sake but for whatever business you’re in.
This interview continues at Carah.io/CX-Galvin.
Executive Viewpoint
A conversation with
JACK GALVIN
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