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Weekly Round-up: May 04, 2012

Gadi Ben-Yehuda

Dan Chenok

John Kamensky

  • Federal IT Shared Services Strategy Released. Federal News Radio’s Jason Miller reports that Steve VanRoekel, the federal chief information officer, announced in a blog post the release of a Federal IT Shared Services Strategy, and steps that agencies will need to take, by August 31st. The objective is to reduce duplicative spending across about $46 billion in IT investments.
  • Government IT Project Deploys 2 Years Ahead of Schedule! This may fall into the category of ‘man bites dog,” a great news story in government. . . . NextGov’s Bob Brewin reports that “the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments will install an integrated electronic health record in hospitals in Norfolk, Va., and San Antonio in 2014, two years ahead of schedule.” They had originally thought it would take four years to reach this point in the project. . . .” When the two departments complete the iEHR deployment, it will stand as the largest electronic health record system in the world, serving 7.8 million veterans and 9.7 million military personnel through 59 military hospitals and 152 VA hospitals with a combined staff of more than 350,000.”
  • Is it Real, or Am I Being Spoofed? According to Information Week, GSA has created a new “social media registry” webpage where “federal agencies can list their accounts on 22 social media platforms. The public can also use the registry to verify whether accounts are bona fide government accounts.” The tool will be ready in two weeks – here.
  • Data-Driven Decisions: The Impact of CompStat. New York Times contributor Tina Rosenberg takes an in-depth look into the evolution of the NY Police Department’s pioneering use of CompStat and how it has evolved over the past 18 years. It’s use has not only led to a significant drop in crime in New York City, but its use has been applied in other arenas such as parks and homelessness, with positive results. According to Rosenberg, “at least 19 United States cities, a couple of counties and two states — Maryland and Washington — that use CompStat for activities other than police work. Some federal agencies are also adapting the model.”
  • Status of Labor-Management Pilot Projects on Negotiating Over Permissive Subjects of Bargaining. Here’s a 177-page status report by the National Council on Federal Labor Management Relations describing the results of 12 pilot projects over the past two years to allow labor and management to bargain over topics that have traditionally been prohibited, such as the right to determine the number of employees it would take to perform a task. The report assesses the impact of allowing such bargaining in the pilots on organizational performance, employee satisfaction, and labor management relations. The conclusion? “. . . many of the pilot projects had success in working collaboratively on issues involving permissive subjects and other topics. [Including] Increased communication, collaboration, and satisfactory labor-management relations . . ,” but . . . “The Council has determined that challenges remain.“

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