Federal Reports

Because this report contains Controlled Unclassified Information, it is not being released to the public.

The OIG conducted this audit to determine whether medical facilities followed VHA’s process to plan, request, and approve nonexpendable medical equipment purchases. Nonexpendable equipment typically has a useful life of two years or more and costs at least $300. Ventilators, radiology equipment, and vital sign monitors are examples. VHA’s process requires facilities to use the Strategic Equipment Planning Guide and Enterprise Equipment Request portal, designed to support streamlined planning and expedite approval of equipment orders. From FY 2022 through May of FY 2024, VHA staff entered requests into the guide to buy about $2.1 billion in medical equipment.

The OIG found that VHA facilities did not effectively plan for, request, or approve nonexpendable medical equipment purchases as required. This aligned with supply chiefs’ own finding that facilities did not use the process during FY 2024. Specifically, medical facilities did not use the required process for all planning and approval, and some VHA facilities still had not fully implemented the process (mandated in FY 2017) as of FY 2024. The OIG identified two reasons for the noncompliance: VHA had developed guidance but lacked a requirement for staff to use the material, and staff were unclear on what equipment needed to be entered and approved.

A lack of proper planning and approval increases the risk of staff buying items that facility leaders are not aware of or that do not fit in the desired location. The latter scenario happened when the VA medical facility in Tampa, Florida, purchased $500,000 scrubEx machines in June 2021. Consequently, staff have stored and not used the equipment.

The OIG made five recommendations to increase use of VHA’s process and achieve its purpose.

Section 487(a)(17) of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA), requires postsecondary schools participating in Title IV programs to annually report data, including data relevant to students’ cost of attendance and financial aid and the schools’ graduation rates, to the U.S. Department of Education’s (Department) Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) to the satisfaction of the Secretary. The objective of our inspection was to determine whether Joliet Junior College (JJC) reported verifiable data to IPEDS for the 2021–2022 reporting period. We found that JJC did not always report verifiable data to IPEDS for the 2021–2022 reporting period. The total amount of grant and scholarship aid that JJC students received for the 2021–2022 reporting period and the number of full-time undergraduate students who were enrolled in the fall of 2021 and seeking their first postsecondary certificate or degree that the school reported to IPEDS were not verifiable. In addition, the number of students who were full-time undergraduate students who began attending the school during academic year 2019–2020, were seeking their first postsecondary certificate or degree, and completed their program of study by the end of academic year 2021–2022 (150 percent of the normal time) that JJC reported to IPEDS were not verifiable. While not all reported financial aid and program completion data were verifiable, the average tuition and fees, books and supplies, room and board, and other expenses charged to full-time undergraduate students who were seeking their first certificate or degree that the school reported to IPEDS for the 2021–2022 reporting period were verifiable. JJC did not always report verifiable data to IPEDS because it did not update and implement procedures for collecting, consolidating, assessing the reliability of, and reporting data to IPEDS.