The Veterans Affairs Department is losing another top leader.
Scott Blackburn, the executive in charge of VA’s Office of Information and Technology, is resigning, effective immediately.
Blackburn had effectively been serving as the department’s acting chief information officer since October 2017. As acting CIO, he served as one of the leading figures behind VA’s electronic health record modernization.
A VA spokesman confirmed Blackburn’s resignation. The department hasn’t yet named a replacement, the spokesman told Federal News Radio. Bill James is the current acting principal deputy assistant secretary at VA OI&T and could take Blackburn’s place as the acting head of the office.
In his resignation letter, Blackburn gave no specific reason for his departure. He praised both former VA Secretaries Bob McDonald and David Shulkin for the opportunity to serve as an interim deputy secretary, senior adviser on transformation and executive director of McDonald’s MyVA Task Force.
“My effort has always been about better caring for veterans regardless of presidential administration, Republican or Democrat, and I have been honored to serve alongside both in a bipartisan way,” Blackburn wrote.
Blackburn’s departure creates even more uncertainty for the status of VA’s electronic health record modernization. Former VA Secretary Shulkin had announced the department’s plans to move away from existing Veterans Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) and adopt the same commercial, off-the-shelf electronic health record as the Defense Department.
That project has already experienced its fair share of setbacks and uncertainties. Though VA said it intends to follow DoD’s same plan to deploy the new EHR at sites first along the Pacific Northwest, the Pentagon has also had its own early problems with implementation.
In addition, Shulkin late last year had paused contract negotiations with Cerner Corporation, the lead vendor on VA’s EHR modernization. Shulkin had last told Congress he hoped VA would be ready to move forward with the vendor “soon,” but the department hasn’t announced any further announcements.
Members of the federal IT community, along with veterans service organizations, had already expressed concerns that Shulkin’s departure would “slam the brakes” on any major reform efforts, including the EHR project.
During Blackburn’s tenure as acting CIO, VA’s information technology office closed some data centers and began upgrading its infrastructure to prepare for the new health record.
VA also launched a new online tool to help veterans track their disability compensation appeals.
Blackburn’s departure also creates another major hole in VA’s leadership cadre.
Acting officials now hold nearly all of VA’s top leadership positions, including the secretary, undersecretaries for the Veterans Health Administration and Veterans Benefits Administration, and now the CIO. Many of those positions have been open for nearly 400 days.
