The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is looking to take a more proactive approach to using its data, with the goal of anticipating veterans’ needs and making it easier for them to access the benefits and services they have earned.
Speaking at the GovCIO Federal Cloud & Data Forum in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 8, VA Chief Data Officer Lisa Rosenmerkel said the department has an opportunity to use artificial intelligence (AI) and automation to anticipate veterans’ needs and connect them with benefits.
“How could we be more proactive?” Rosenmerkel asked. “How could we, instead of having the veteran say, ‘Hey, I think I’m eligible for this other thing,’ how could we proactively say, ‘Oh, hey, it looks like you just had a kid, or it looks like your kid might be getting to be college age. Have you looked at GI Bill benefits?’”
“Right now, we send out materials, but they’re kind of generic,” she added. “Can we be more proactive and say, you know, ‘Here’s something we’re pretty sure you’re eligible for. Why don’t you check this box and we’ll look into it further?’”
Rosenmerkel pointed to Amazon as an example of how data can help organizations anticipate customer needs.
“If you all of a sudden started buying diapers from Amazon, your little list when you logged in would be a little different next time, right?” she said, explaining that Amazon might begin recommending cribs or baby bottles.
“Why can’t we do that for veterans?” Rosenmerkel asked. “Why can’t we use the information we have to be more proactive and offer those services and make it just so easy for them to take the benefits and services they earned?”
Rosenmerkel said VA could apply that same approach when service members transition out of the military, using existing service and medical records to identify benefits they may qualify for rather than requiring them to initiate the process themselves.
“We have that information,” Rosenmerkel said. But making that vision a reality will require the VA to improve how it shares information across its programs.
Better information sharing would mean veterans wouldn’t have to repeatedly provide the same information to multiple VA offices, she noted.
“We ask veterans the same question too much,” she said.
Rather than eliminating every data silo, Rosenmerkel said VA is focused on bridging them.
“I don’t talk about eliminating data silos because, I mean, I’d be here for the rest of my life,” she said. “I talk about bridging them.”
Looking ahead, Rosenmerkel said automation could help claims processors retrieve relevant information faster, allowing them to focus on making decisions rather than searching through records.
“The really simple automation sometimes can be transformative,” Rosenmerkel said.