The Department of Veterans Affairs is showing once again why it's a leader not only in health IT, but also in government innovation and transparency with two new initiatives.

The VA now is soliciting ideas from employees on how best to use IT to improve healthcare delivery. Workers and contractors in the VA's Veterans Health Administration and the Office of Information and Technology have until Sunday to post their ideas online, comment on proposals and vote on their favorites. The department then will choose the top 100 ideas and ask the originators to develop full proposals, Government Health IT reports.

Meanwhile, the department has posted a public IT "dashboard" to illustrate where the VA's $3.4 billion annual IT budget goes to. The site details the cost and schedule of 76 projects in nine categories, tracks performance by color-coded ratings and displays the status under the department's Program Management Accountability System, which CIO Roger Baker initiated last year to help keep projects on track and identify failing efforts.

The dashboard is similar to--but more detailed than--one the White House Office of Management and Budget set up last year to provide greater transparency on federal IT programs.

For more information:
- see this Government Health IT story about the employee initiative
- check out this InformationWeek article on the VA dashboard
- go to the VA dashboard itself

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