The Department of Veterans Affairs will stand up a series of internal and external mobile apps in January to deliver veterans programs and help employees do a better job of delivering benefits.

Up to 100,000 employees handling patients’ clinical information and veteran’s benefits eventually will be able to access the mobile apps to manage records while moving around units and facilities, VA CIO Roger Baker said, easing and streamlining processes and eliminating delays that have often characterized the VA’s handling of benefits. In addition, mobile apps for veterans will offer easy access to benefits and claim status.

FirstView Federal TS was awarded a $12.5 million contract for the work in September.

“Mobile applications themselves will be local to the device, not cloud-based,” said Jerry Ambrosh, FirstView’s Senior Vice President, Health Solutions. “The Cloud Computing Environment is being used to support the VA’s Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution, a Mobile Application Environment (MAE) for development, and an Internal and External App Store.”

Mobile app developers will be able to access a cloud-based Veterans Health Administration’s benefits system, he added.

The “Clinic In Hand” application will enable physicians to view patient information and include patient-to-provider secure messaging. Other mobile apps will offer women’s health information, voice dictation capability and a facility and be locator. A “My Goals” application will help veterans to identify and organize goals related to housing, transportation, relationships, and health. PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder) Coach (pictured above) will also be part of the library.

The VA is continuing work on a BYOD (bring your own device) policy related to its efforts to deliver more mobile services and capabilities for federal workers. The MDM solution allows device security verification, an important step in allowing personal mobile devices onto the network.