\u201cIncumbency is not a guarantee, incumbency is not an advantage,\u201d Schwartz said in an interview with FedScoop. \u201cWe will not settle just because you\u2019ve supported the VA in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schwartz said Wednesday\u2019s private IT Advanced Planning Brief to Industry<\/a> was a breakthrough between the agency and industry, as he made it clear that the \u201cmassive organization\u201d is \u201cmoving extremely fast\u201d to modernize and integrate AI with governance.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are seeing how fast we are changing how we contract, how we change our expectations for those contractors and how we hold not only contractors but the federal team accountable to achieve an outcome,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Contractors with multi-year deals aren\u2019t safe either, Schwartz said, as the VA will be checking in to see how companies are modernizing and using AI moving forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAt all points in the contract, we will review whether or not the contract is performing to what the VA needs because time changes what the VA needs,\u201d he said. \u201cNot necessarily because your performance has gone downhill or is an issue, but it may be because the VA\u2019s requirements have changed from when the contract was initially made. And that\u2019s, again, a massive mindset shift.\u201d<\/p>\n VA\u2019s OIT just completed its second wave of electronic health record modernization<\/a> earlier this month, Schwartz said in a LinkedIn post<\/a>. It currently has several contracting opportunities open <\/a>related to EHRM across the country, many published within the past few weeks.<\/p>\n Schwartz credited new leadership under the \u201cfully engaged\u201d Secretary Doug Collins<\/a>, whom he said recognizes that tech is the \u201cbackbone\u201d of veteran services. The speed at which AI is evolving has prompted this contracting paradigm shift in part, he added \u2014 and the department\u2019s speediness is attracting \u201cunbelievable\u201d talent from across agencies to move to the VA.<\/p>\n \u201cAI is becoming an expectation for use of the VA. \u2026 We will not be scared of risks associated with AI to our detriment,\u201d Schwartz said. \u201cOur adoption, our focus on it in every procurement and in every action that we take is paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n
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