Federal Reports

Robert Barrows, a former Amtrak Assistant Conductor, was sentenced in U.S. District Court, District of Massachusetts, on December 7, 2021, and ordered to pay restitution of $1,000. He pleaded guilty on June 17, 2021, to making a false statement to obtain federal employee’s compensation in 2016. Barrows falsely claimed on his unemployment benefits claim form that he had no income during the claim period when he applied for Railroad Retirement Board unemployment benefits. Our investigation was conducted jointly with the RRB Office of Inspector General.

The VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) examined whether the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) implemented data collection and reporting systems to report on the supply of COVID-19 vaccines to VA medical facilities and doses administered to VA employees and veterans enrolled in VA’s healthcare system (approximately 9.5 million individuals). Although essential for national reporting, tracking VA vaccine data is difficult because VA does not have a centralized national pharmacy inventory management system to track vaccine supply at facilities.Although VHA staff swiftly developed data collection systems, the review team determined the reliability of COVID 19 vaccine data could be improved in several areas. The team determined that Pharmacy Benefits Management Services staff did not verify vaccine supply data from facilities, which are manually entered and prone to error; vaccination data in key systems were inconsistent and contained inaccuracies due to inadequate validation and user error; VHA staff at some VA medical facilities initially lacked system access to enter employee vaccination data; and the dashboard VHA developed to consolidate vaccine data contained unvalidated data. Accurate data are needed not only to schedule and prioritize COVID-19 vaccinations but also to report the percentages of vaccinated veterans and employees to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Inaccurate vaccine data also increase the risk of COVID-19 vaccine theft.VA concurred with the OIG’s three recommendations (one in principle), including developing processes for verifying medical facility vaccine supply data and for monitoring the use of tools to minimize data entry errors and ensuring the consolidated dashboard data are reliable, accurate, and complete. These strategies also will help VA track COVID-19 vaccinations for other populations, including unenrolled veterans (around 10 million as of June 2021), veterans’ spouses and caregivers, and other federal agency employees.