Case Studies

GOVERNMENT: VA-IDES

Critical Thinking applied to Big Data Processes

Background

Integrated Disability Evaluation System (IDES) is a Department of Defense (DoD) program administered with assistance from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). The program evaluates a Servicemember’s fitness for duty and eligibility for DoD/VA disability compensation and benefits. VA is responsible for four of the eight core processes within IDES: 1) claims development, 2) medical examination, 3) proposed rating, and 4) VA benefits. The guiding principles for IDES are to provide a system that is seamless and transparent, less complex, less adversarial, faster with more consistent evaluations and compensation, and produces a single medical exam and single-source disability rating for Servicemembers.

There was limited documentation of the end-to-end IDES process with no clear definition around major aspects of the process and how they were connected to the data the team was tasked with analyzing.

What DuraBante Did

The range of support provided spanned from daily monitoring of IDES performance metrics to preparing VA executives for congressional testimony, GAO inquiries, and Secretarial-level IDES status updates. Our stakeholder community includes all VA Regional Offices, all VISNs, VBA and VHA, DoD, and the Military Departments.

Utilizing Lean Six Sigma techniques, DuraBante:

  • Provided technical, analytical, and business process improvement support managing the integrated DoD and VA IDES process for a caseload as high as 35,000 Servicemembers.
  • Defined and documented a SIPOC-RC and level-three process map of the process from end-to-end.
  • Applied advanced statistical and predictive analysis, forecasting, and data visualization techniques on the performance measurements currently in use in order to:
    • Develop new metrics where needed.
    • Refine those metrics over time.
    • Monitor and report on system performance.
    • Evaluate the effectiveness of IDES tailored to VA decision makers and practitioners.
  • Utilized the capabilities of systems currently in use to:
    • Develop techniques to reduce errors in metric reporting.
    • Identify potential issues in the database.
    • Make recommendations to reduce errors and data shortfalls in the future.

Results

  • Reduced the reporting cycle from over 10 business days to under 4 business days (60% reduction).
    • Provided more accurate and timely information to facilitate data driven decision making at the highest levels of the federal government.
  • This enabled the IDES Program Office to eliminate process constraints reducing the average days to complete the IDES processing from over 400 days to under their 295-day goal (36% reduction).
  • Significantly reduced human error by developing routines/macros to automate the process.
  • The process mapping effort was completed in under a month and provided substantial information to the project team and the IDES Program Office. Mapping allowed:
    • The team to gain a solid understanding of the “As-Is” process.
    • Provided an understanding of where the data was located and how it was being gathered.
    • Provided the basis to provide additional metrics that enhanced and streamlined the reporting process.
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