The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is touting its progress in decommissioning legacy IT systems, which the agency said is helping it save taxpayer money and reinvest in critical IT updates and infrastructure.
VA’s Office of Information and Technology (OIT) said that since January 2025, it has decommissioned 29 legacy IT systems, with plans to decommission nine additional systems before the end of the fiscal year. The federal government’s fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.
“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,” VA’s acting Chief Information Officer (CIO) Eddie Pool said in an Aug. 21 release from VA OIT.
The VA OIT said that by decommissioning aging IT systems, it has been able 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 is the VA’s updated identity verification systems, which it said now utilize multi-factor authentication to better protect veteran data.
Additionally, the VA said that it deployed a new internal, web-based indexing tool in April that allows employees to more easily upload and categorize life insurance applications, claims, and beneficiary updates. The tool replaces a 30-year-old platform and significantly reduces the manual steps required to process documents.
The newly launched tool allows for faster bulk uploads of documents and is fully compatible with the VA’s central Claim Evidence document storage system. VA OIT officials estimate that retrieving insurance-related documents through Claim Evidence will be about 50% faster than before. The move is also expected to reduce storage costs compared with the previous storage solution.
The VA also pointed to another IT accomplishment in reducing veteran wait time for the approval of their school attendance requests. According to the release, the VA OIT cut 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,” Aija Rhodes, the director of the VA OIT’s Office of Communication, wrote in the Aug. 21 release.
“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,” Rhodes added.
As VA facilities navigate the requirements of return-to-office work environments, Rhodes said that the VA OIT has also proactively upgraded more than 195 VA sites to boost the available network bandwidth.
Taken together, the VA OIT said that these recent IT 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.”