Two federal agencies with significant healthcare responsibilities recently submitted their budget requests to Congress.

But as Congressional leaders wade through the numbers they may want to ask how some of those dollars are going to be spent.

Let’s begin with the facts as they have been reported: The Department of Defense “has requested a total of $1.5 billion for health IT in the 2011 budget, up from $1.4 billion this year. (The Veterans Administration) is asking for $1.3 billion for health IT in 2011 . . .

The DoD budget request adds $300 million to support modernization of the department’s electronic health record and medical IT infrastructure, including joint efforts with the VA to build a virtual lifetime electronic record (VLER). $52 million is specifically slated for the development of the VLER.”

That all sounds pretty straightforward, except when it’s viewed in the context of our observations yesterday concerning the ongoing implementation problems with which both these agencies have reportedly been struggling in recent years.

In short, planning and management problems abound.

Naturally, that isn’t to say that the budget request should be rejected outright, but perhaps Congress could ask a few questions. For example, what steps have been taken, or are being taken, to ensure that the problems identified by the Government Accountability Office are being addressed? What percentage of the requested funds will need to go toward cleaning up past messes? How long will it take to get DoD/VA IT systems in some semblance of order?

In other words, what’s the overall plan for health IT in these agencies? How long will it take to implement successfully? What are the benchmarks being used to measure progress?

As for the perspective of federal healthcare policymakers, the DoD/VA IT woes might best be seen as an opportunity to show healthcare stakeholders across the country how to proceed methodically when planning, implementing, and demonstrating the effectiveness of new health IT.

We suspect a lot of IT proponents, as well as their various Boards of Directors, would be grateful for the education.