VA’s Office of Information and Technology is a driving force behind modernizing and optimizing IT systems that serve Veterans across the country. By focusing on initiatives that increase efficiency and cut costs, we’re not only enhancing the quality of services VA provides but also ensuring effective use of VA resources.

Demonstrated cost effectiveness

VA is avoiding billions of dollars in costs over the life of various IT systems and contracts, through decommissioning legacy systems, descoping and price reductions, transitioning work to Government full-time employees and other efficiencies. This allows VA to reinvest into critical updates and infrastructure that enable us to deliver more care and benefits than ever before.

Since January 2025, we’ve successfully decommissioned 29 IT systems, and as we’ve continued to rigorously evaluate our IT portfolios, an additional nine systems have been identified for decommissioning before the end of the fiscal year. Decommissioning aging and expensive legacy systems has allowed us to implement new ones, such as one that provides real-time visibility into the IT environment, improving our IT operations, reducing risk and enhancing our decision-making. Another example of this is our upgraded identity verification systems, which feature multi-factor authentication to better protect VA and Veteran data against unauthorized access.

“These efforts are a testament to our continuous efforts to drive improvements in our technology portfolio. Modernizing our systems improves security, reduces legacy maintenance costs and supports our Veteran-first mission by putting more resources towards new solutions,” said VA’s acting Chief Information Officer Eddie Pool (Performing the Delegable Duties of the Assistant Secretary for Information and Technology and Chief Information Officer).

Streamlined processes for Veteran benefits

We recently reduced Veteran wait time for approval of their school attendance requests, cutting off an average 58 days per request, by implementing a Rules Based Processing System (RBPS) for online submissions of VA Form 674 (Request for Approval of School Attendance). We use a set of rules to automatically and efficiently process forms based on information entered by the user. Within the first month, the new capability sped processing of 1,452 requests. This upgrade provides Veterans with quicker access to benefits and lightens the workload on Veterans Benefits Administration staff, showcasing the power of technological innovation in streamlining Veteran support services and improving timeliness.

Insurance processing

In April, we deployed a new internal, web-based indexing tool so staff can more efficiently categorize and upload life insurance applications, claims and beneficiary updates from Veterans. It is replacing a 30-year-old system and allowing faster bulk upload of documents with fewer manual steps, and it’s compatible with migrating insurance-related documents to VA’s central Claim Evidence document storage system, where we estimate document retrieval time will be 50 percent faster than in the past. In addition, storing documents to Claim Evidence will help us reduce storage costs compared with the previous storage solution. For VA, it will mean a more efficient, less costly and a modern approach to managing insurance claims. For Veterans, it will mean faster processing of insurance benefits.

Seamless transition to return-to-office

As VA facilities navigate the IT requirements of return to office work environments, we’ve proactively upgraded more than 195 VA sites, significantly boosting the available network bandwidth. These upgrades are helping ensure VA staff can transition back to the office smoothly with minimal disruptions, effectively supporting the Veterans we serve.

Continuing to lead the charge

These strides underscore VA’s unwavering dedication to optimizing efficiencies, enhancing service reliability and implementing cost-effective IT solutions, fostering a more resilient and responsive VA for Veterans and their families.