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Once considered a futuristic technology, artificial intelligence (AI) is now a present-day priority as public agencies and government institutions tackle digital transformation and leverage AI’s potential for the public good. The goal is central to technology’s purpose, which strives to create solutions addressing real-world problems and fostering societal progress. When effectively deployed, AI-powered systems can revolutionise how public services are delivered, making them more efficient and responsive to the community’s needs, thereby fostering a more equitable society.
However, not every sector is equally adept at harnessing technology’s advancements. Many segments within the public sector grapple with the adaptation challenge, often hindered by limited resources or a lack of digital literacy. This struggle to keep pace with technological evolution can create disparities in service delivery and delays in realising technology’s full potential in improving lives.
This was precisely the point of discussion of the Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs & Technology Modernization Joint Oversight Hearing last June 2023. The hearing highlighted the pressing need for concerted efforts to provide adequate training, infrastructure, and policy frameworks that enable the smooth transition of the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) into the digital era, ensuring that the benefits of technology elevate the organisation’s delivery of services.
The challenges are complex for public sector organisations like the VBA attempting to modernise services through technology adoption. More importantly, adopting new AI technologies to improve services requires skillful execution. Anjanava Biswas, a Senior AI Specialist Solutions Architect at Amazon Web Services (AWS) with more than 15 years of professional experience, has been part of one of VBA’s modernization projects. Through AI and machine learning solutions from experts like Biswas, the goal is to provide veterans with the smooth, effective, fast service benefits they deserve.
Diving deep into the sector’s issues
Sectors that have long relied on traditional methods for their operations are increasingly facing the challenge of adapting to rapidly evolving technology. This transition is crucial for maintaining efficiency and relevance in today’s digital age, but it’s often fraught with hurdles, especially for organisations like the VBA. As an essential entity in providing services to veterans, the VBA has encountered significant difficulties with its IT systems, particularly in the wake of new legislative changes.
The enactment of the PACT Act, a law expanding VA health care and benefits for veterans exposed to burn pits, Agent Orange, and other toxic substances, has notably increased the scope of VBA’s responsibilities. This expansion has led to a significant surge in the volume of benefit claims, 600,000 PACT Act claims plus 1 million non-PACT Acts claims, resulting in backlogs that the current IT infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle.
The existing systems, not originally designed to support such a high volume of data processing and complex case management, are experiencing frequent system downtimes. These interruptions not only cause delays in processing claims but also lead to system crashes that can result in the loss of work. This diminishes efficiency and adversely impacts the morale and performance of the employees striving to provide timely assistance to veterans.
This situation underscores the urgent need to modernise the VBA’s technological infrastructure to be more robust, scalable, and secure to enhance its capacity, manage increased workloads, and adapt to new legislative requirements, ultimately improving veterans’ services and internal productivity.
Biswas emphasises that this modernization effort at the Veterans Benefits Administration encompasses more than a technological upgrade. It represents a commitment to the well-being of veterans who have served, ensuring they receive the benefits and care they rightly deserve in a timely and efficient manner. Approaching modernization in this holistic way, with the end-user experience firmly in mind, will be essential to transform service delivery through AI technology adoption.
Modernization of VBA’s IT systems
In response to sector challenges, the VBA has already made strides to adapt technological advancements in their operations. They have established automation systems to minimise manual tasks, boost productivity, and ensure more efficient service delivery. They have transformed paper-based processes into electronic claims processing, representing a monumental shift in how organisations manage and process information. This digitization streamlines operations and significantly reduces the time to process claims, directly benefiting the end-users.
The COVID-19 pandemic further underscored the necessity of digitalization. Organisations that had already begun transitioning their IT systems to cloud services were better equipped to continue their operations amidst the challenges posed by the pandemic. These cloud-based systems enabled remote work setups, ensuring uninterrupted services.
The journey toward modernization continued beyond these initial steps, leading to the development of more sophisticated technological solutions built in collaboration with Biswas and his team at AWS. Biswas and his team’s expertise was critical to the projects involving cloud services incorporating advanced features like intelligent search capabilities and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) using Amazon Textract software. Biswas has worked on some of the major breakthroughs of this machine learning (ML) software at AWS, which automatically extracts and interprets text and handwriting, identifies key terms in paperwork, and scanned documents of old treatment records.
With more than 18 million veterans in the US today, such innovations pave the way to simplify complex processes, lessen piling workloads, gather eligibility information for mandated benefits, facilitate more accurate and timely decision-making, and decrease waiting times that veterans suffer to get their mandated benefits.
Biswas adds that Amazon Textract represents more than just enhancing efficiency in processing benefits applications. It signifies a paradigm shift in how manual processes of obtaining essential information from documents are automated, paving the way for a future where technology and human-centric services merge to create more responsive and effective systems. Textract is not just about streamlining processes but about enabling a wholesale transformation in how the Veterans Benefits Administration can deliver services to veterans.
Navigating modernization with safety
While offering numerous benefits regarding efficiency and productivity, the advancement and modernization of IT systems also present significant challenges in ensuring data safety and privacy. The risk of unauthorised data usage and privacy violations increases as systems become more complex and capable, especially with AI and integrating cloud-based technologies. This is a critical concern in sectors like the VBA, where sensitive personal information is routinely processed.
These concerns have prompted the government to take proactive steps by releasing an executive order titled the “Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights.” Such a directive outlines standards and guidelines for correctly implementing technologies by various agencies. It aims to ensure that agencies maintain core values and the imperative to serve the public better while embracing technological advancements. The Blueprint emphasises the need for transparency, accountability, and the protection of civil liberties in deploying AI and other advanced systems.
According to Biswas, it’s essential to recognize that these advanced AI-based systems are designed to assist and augment human capabilities, not replace them. The primary objective is to leverage technology to enhance service delivery, decision-making, and operational efficiency. The symbiotic relationship between technology and human expertise is essential in creating a future where technological advancements are seamlessly integrated into public services, augmenting rather than supplanting the human touch.
Indeed, balancing the power of advanced technology and protecting the privacy of individuals is a critical issue that needs to be addressed as part of these modernization efforts.
