Open Recommendations

Develop and implement more frequent limited-scope drills, emphasizing roles and responsibilities for personnel needing or rendering emergency evacuation assistance.

Complete the requisite program management planning before starting construction or, if not feasible, as soon as possible thereafter. At a minimum, this should include updating the schedule, developing a communications plan, establishing a document management plan with a related system, and advancing risk management plans.

Establish processes to ensure that the company decides on and implements a program's management structure early enough to provide strong, continuous oversight for the entire life of a program.

Establish processes to ensure that program teams have sufficient staff before the company transitions a program from the Strategy and Planning department to the Capital Delivery department.

Ensure timely steps are taken to approve and implement a modernization strategy which covers SSA modernization efforts and comprehensively addresses legacy system risks for the upcoming years.

Ensure timely steps are taken to develop Enterprise Architecture planning documents that directly align with strategic objectives and performance goals noted in the Agency's strategic and Annual Performance Plans.

Review the Information Resource Management Strategic Plan annually and ensure it supports the goals of the Agency Strategic Plan, as required by the Government Performance and Results Modernization Act of 2010, OMB Circular A-130, the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, and the Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996.

Ensure legacy system modernization plans include a detailed description of the work needed for modernization, considerations for the disposition of the system, and tracking cost data that covers all aspects of the project.

Regularly perform risk assessments for legacy systems, as required by OMB Circular A-130, Section 5(a)(1)(b)(i) and (c)(ii). Performing assessments regularly will help management identify information systems and components that cannot be appropriately protected or secured. This will ensure that such systems that may be costly or difficult to maintain, are given high priority for upgrade, replacement, or retirement.

Continue to refine the Agency’s inventory of business applications to ensure data elements specifically related to changes, such as retiring or replacing applications, resulting from modernization efforts are tracked/flagged appropriately.

Implement cost monitoring mechanisms to help with the tracking and management costs related to modernization. Additionally, management should conduct cost analyses for modernization projects, considering cost from a risk perspective.

Regularly perform post-implementation reviews on all information technology investments.

The Chief Information Officer should timely remediate or mitigate all vulnerabilities in accordance with IRS policies.

The Chief Information Officer should ensure that systems are in place to reconcile the temporary and unknown repositories to verify that assets are assigned to an established group.

The Chief Information Officer should ensure that systems are in place to reconcile duplicate accounting of assets in the repository.

The Chief Information Officer should evaluate the temporary and unknown repositories to establish ownership of assets.

The Chief Information Officer should resolve configuration compliance settings in accordance with Federal and IRS policies.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director strengthens processes to ensure that providers provide patient education about applicable boxed warnings when prescribing psychiatric medication, and monitors compliance.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director ensures mental health staff conduct suicide risk screenings and assessments as required by the Veterans Health Administration, and monitors compliance.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director strengthens processes to ensure adequate lethal means assessment and lethal means safety counseling with patients.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director reviews posttraumatic stress disorder clinic processes to consult with a patients prescriber following worsening of a patients mental health symptoms.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director conducts a review of the supervisory oversight of the social worker and other clinicians in the posttraumatic stress disorder clinic to ensure the identification and follow-up of clinical concerns for patients with complex mental health needs.

The VA Tuscaloosa Healthcare System Director strengthens processes to ensure adherence to Veterans Health Administration and facility traumatic brain injury screening and consult requirements, and monitors compliance.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Director develops and implements processes to incorporate veteran input for process improvements.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Chief of Mental Health ensures a minimum of four hours of recovery-oriented, interdisciplinary programming on weekends on the inpatient mental health unit.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Director identifies and addresses barriers to admission for veterans on involuntary holds for mental health treatment.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Director ensures alignment between involuntary commitment policies and practices, consistency with state laws, and implementation of monitoring processes.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Chief of Staff ensures assignment of ongoing responsibilities for monitoring timely documentation of the change in veterans voluntary or involuntary legal status, consistent with VHA policy and state laws.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Chief of Staff ensures timely documentation of discussions between the prescriber and veteran on the risks and benefits of newly prescribed medications and monitors for improvement.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Chief of Staff ensures discharge summaries are completed within two business days of discharge and monitors for compliance.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Chief of Staff ensures discharge instructions for veterans include appointment location and contact information in easy-to-understand language.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Director ensures that medications listed in discharge instructions include the purpose for each medication and are written in easy-to-understand language.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Chief of Staff identifies barriers to completing the Columbia-Suicide Severity Risk Scale Screener within 24 hours prior to discharge, implements processes, and monitors to ensure compliance.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Chief of Staff ensures that safety plans address ways to make the veterans environment safer from potentially lethal means and monitors for compliance.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Director ensures staff comply with lethal means safety training and suicide risk training requirements and monitors for compliance.

The VA Augusta Health Care System Chief of Staff ensures mental health leaders update inpatient unit toilets to meet safety requirements and implement processes to reduce associated safety risks.

Ensure that FCI Lewisburg Executive Leadership and the Central Office's Human Resources Management Division discuss the staffing projection tool methodology and how it compares with FCI Lewisburg Executive Leadership's understanding of its current and potential future mission needs to ensure greater alignment between stakeholder staffing projections.

Ensure that the Health Services Division (Central and/or Regional Office) reviews medication discontinuation practices at FCI Lewisburg and other holdover facilities, including the discontinuation of antidepressants without a clinical encounter, to determine whether such practices are consistent with BOP clinical guidance. If the Health Services Division determines that such practices are inconsistent with BOP clinical guidance, it should work collaboratively with FCI Lewisburg clinicians to identify practical solutions to increase the frequency with which clinicians conduct a clinical encounter with holdover inmates in advance of such decisions so that clinicians can collect complete information about an inmate's condition and the…

Ensure FCI Lewisburg's compliance with existing Central Office guidance for certain employees to carry a cut-down tool when on duty.

Establish written policies and procedures for the Special Agent Hiring panel to include defined roles and responsibilities for individuals serving on the panel and overseeing the panel.

Implement controls to ensure that the documents used to inform hiring panels are accurate, appropriately anonymized, and properly reviewed.

Implement controls and provide training to ISS Personnel Security Specialists to ensure polygraph Reports of Investigation are being appropriately reviewed.

Establish procedures for identifying and mitigating the risks associated with granting SCI access to individuals who failed a pre-employment polygraph exam.

Complete its record retention policy review, to include establishing appropriate and consistent record retention policies for the maintenance of all polygraph casefiles.

Ensure that contractors who hold a security clearance and have not successfully completed the pre-employment polygraph examination are removed from DEA contracts, in accordance with DEA policy.

Formally implement its newly established procedures to prevent foreign officials who do not successfully complete the foreign screening polygraph exam from being admitted to DEA-sponsored vetted units and ensure foreign officials receive timely foreign screening polygraph exams as required by DEA policy.

Complete its review of SIUNet records to ensure that inaccurate and duplicate data is removed and/or corrected.

Review the supervisory reporting structure for Polygraph Examiners to ensure examiners can independently carry out the duties and functions of the position.

Review its rehire policies and procedures to ensure that the DEA has clear and consistent practices when rehiring former employees for its four core series positions.

Implement controls to ensure that the polygraph Report of Investigation is being prepared accurately and properly reviewed by the Polygraph Unit.