By D. Thompson
The Maryland Center at Bowie State University along with students and professors from the Departments of Technology and Security and Nursing have joined with Cognosante, a technology transformation company, to develop, deliver and sustain supply chain management systems for medical logistics as part of the Veteran Affairs Healthcare Enterprise Logistics Modernization (HELM) Program. A $9 million award was provided to the Maryland Center as a subcontract of Cognosante to support BSU’s engagement in the project.
The VA HELM project aims to improve productivity and reliability of VA assets and equipment while reducing costs in a safe and sustainable manner. Bowie State is the only HBCU to have students involved in the massive system-wide VA technology modernization. Students will use the Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe®) applying a DevSecOps approach in their work on this project.
“There are three professors, twelve students, and two consultants supporting the program on various Cognosante teams,” said Dr. Lethia Jackson, chair of the Technology and Security Department at Bowie State. “Some students will work within product teams while others will support cyber security teams, such as risk management framework and Zero Trust Architecture, ensuring VA health systems are secure. Nursing students working on the project will receive invaluable insight about healthcare from a health IT perspective.”
The Veterans Health Administration is the largest health care network in the United States made up of 1,243 health care facilities; 172 are VA medical centers, and 1,062 are outpatient sites with varying purpose.
In 2021 the GAO reported that VA has struggled to secure information systems and associated data; implement information security controls and mitigate known security deficiencies; establish key elements of a cybersecurity risk management program; and identify, assess, and mitigate the risks of information and communications technology supply chains.
