Year 2000 Computing Crisis: Actions Needed to Ensure Continued Delivery of Veterans Benefits and Health Care Services

VA concurred with the recommendation. Both VBA and VHA successfully completed the business process simulation in early July 1999 on compliant platforms. VBA conducted end-to-end testing with Treasury in May 1999. VA has reported that all of its applications, including those supporting benefits delivery and health care, have completed the renovation, verification, and implementation phases and can successfully process Year 2000 dates. It also has completed post-implementation testing to ensure that commercial-off-the-shelf, vendor-certified compliant hardware and software will work in year 2000.

VA concurred with this recommendation. On July 30, 1999, VA published a policy directive for facility systems that requires VHA healthcare facilities to identify actions to be taken on utility systems components and interfaces whose Y2K status is non-compliant, conditionally compliant or unknown by September 1, 1999.

VA concurred with the recommendation. By the end of April 1999, each of the seven CMOPs had submitted business continuity and contingency plans.

VA concurred with the recommendation. VHA reported to OMB the VistA CMOP application as mission-critical; however, the VistA CMOP application only addressed the medical center's interface with the CMOP and not the actual CMOP operations. In its August 18, 1999, report to OMB, VA did report on the status of renovating the vendor-supplied CMOP dispensing systems and stated that they are on schedule to complete all work to make all seven of the CMOPs Y2K compliant by the end of September 1999.

VA concurred with the recommendation. VA worked with FDA and various other industry associations to obtain and share information on the Y2K readiness of specific pharmaceutical and medical-surgical suppliers, especially those suppliers who had not responded to VHA's supplier survey. VA has updated its survey database and posted results to its homepage. All updated survey results are shared with FDA as they become available.