[applause] good morning everybody. Good energy in the room it is great to see everybody here how many people work here with a the va . That is great i am glad you could be here today this is important and i really want to thank you for your involvement what you are doing to make va a better place. As you know va has a great tradition of developing and disseminating in and innovation that we rely upon every day and that came out of the va systems your falling in those footsteps. One of the thing settled think people realize as it is incumbent upon you is that with all of the responsibilities that come with so many people who work in jobs with productivity with health care and Everything Else the va is one of the best places to have the time and ability to innovate so i the ink we have to understand and promote this is a great place to doing those things that we can do that those that worked in the private sector those unspent time and energy on innovation so to take you were doing that people know about it and that is what todays about. Thanks for being here and the work youre doing and this is important for us to do. Of many were here last year . So people may not know my favorite tv show is shark tank. [laughter] and i love the energy and the spirit of the entreprenuers. And those who have seen a shark tank you know that those that dont get one of the sharks to invest the most common reason is because the entrepreneurs have developed a company or idea or product there really doesnt solve a problem. You can innovate and not get traction if it is not solving a problem. One of the things i would like to see us do with the Innovation Network is to make sure you are solving a problem that our veterans are experiencing or here at the va. The question i get most commonly as secretary in one of the questions you are asking is with all the of problems that we have that va suffers from is va fixable . Can we fix the system and if so how . My answer is i firmly believe we can fix this. And it is transparency. And to be open and honest is the only way that i know how to fix something is to rid knowledge you have a problem , talk about the problem so you can find creative ways to innovate those solutions. The first thing i did in a public way is i thought lets make sure we are transparent about our problems to identify a risk for va that i believe if we dont solve these 13 risk areas we will not transform or create a Sustainable Organization we can be proud of that accomplishes our mission. So then i decided if you do this to a strategy go big. I ask the president if i could denounce those from the briefing room. And on Live Television i gave those 13 risk areas. Did you see that . A few of you. So what i would say is we need to be innovating in solving the problems of our organization. I cannot remember those 13 areas off the top of my head. [laughter] but i will read them to you and come around. Access to care, paying providers, you did the care unity care the quality of care, disability claims claims, information technology, Capital Assets, construction, accoun tability, staffing, a bureaucracy, fraud waste and abuse and suicide. So you can see us do is go through the 30 in risky areas and beginning to address them. Information technology will notice we announced we are creating a strategy to move toward a commercial solution the same one the department of defense uses under facilities and Capital Assets that we will be disposing of those that our vacant or underutilized so we pass the space accountability and whistleblower protection act. So those solutions are beginning to address the of 13 risk areas. I would hope the work today well help us with that. Because 13 areas are too much for me i have developed five strategies for va to move forward because i can remember five. So as you begin to start thinking about innovations the more that you can target your innovation to one of these strategies, the more likely that we hear in washington d. C. Will support your innovation and disseminate. One is the fundamental way is to give veterans more choice to make them consumers to cover product they want to. They want to choose va as a way to tell them improve their lives. That means we have to open in our system with the private sector. Rand veterans choose health care they will choose between going to the va facility for the private sector. That will fundamentally raise the level of performance and seem more responsive and information of quality of care and the service that we provide the more they will want to to choose us as an overall strategy to put us on a sustainable course on a viable competitive system for years to come. So to put veterans in control of Decision Making to allow them and tories will be key to the strategy. To do that legislatively to eliminate the 30 day requirement which is the administrator ruled that the clinicians in patients about when it makes sense to use va or get care in the community. That is the for strategy. Second is to improve a the timeliness. This is another issue of wait times for veterans from the crisis of 2014 and we still struggle with access to care and wait times one way we innovated is we now publish the wait time so it is openly transparent for everybody to see exactly where the wait times are for any appointment we update that weekly and were the only Health Care System in the country that publishes wait times this is the way we are innovating with transparency and we will continue that we adding satisfaction information so this is a primary strategy. And terms of timeliness of disability claims, 89,000 people waiting more than 125 days for it decision but in september we will announce a new process where a veteran could evade decision within 30 days and were working on Technology Just like the instant decision on a credit card or credit score we could do is in decisions so there is a lot of innovation with timeliness but with appeals you have to wait six years to get a decision and that is ridiculous. In this case we have to have legislative changes because the law was written in 1930 in were seeking up states passing the house and the senate now needs to go back and in september when they return that will be changed giving us room to innovate. That third priority we are focused is to modernize the va with the 30 day area our approach to d i t systems and facilities and best practices we have updated our accountability practices hiring and firing and beginning to update the i. T. Systems and these are decisions have been put off on decades. Looking at i. T. 70 years ago a Blue Ribbon Panel and hearing consulting reports saying i. T. Va needed interoperable liddy to be a more modern system but we put that off for decades now were trying to no longer put off decisions so with modernization we need innovation for the most advanced technology and ways to serve the of veterans. The fourth area is to focus resources differently. It cannot be everything to everybody. So we focus on those services that our critical to veterans and frankly your not done well in the private sector. Ptsd, traumatic brain injury , blind rehabilitation now the question is what do we do . [laughter] lets see if somebody comes and tells us. A fire emergency has been reported. Please leave the building. Do you think we should . [laughter] they are telling me i am okay. [laughter] we probably should the . Sorry about this. We probably should exit the building. [inaudible conversations] i have been informed there is not a fire it was just them telling me i was going on too long so i will finish my introduction. So i was describing those five priorities and i was on the fourth which is to focus our efforts in a different way and on what we called the Foundational Services that our critical to veterans that are not really replicated in the private sector and talking about things that impact people that served in the military like ptsd and Rehabilitation Services but also be your thinking about the other types of things we consider foundational. The approach to primary care which is more comprehensive and into primary care is a model not readily available in the private sector so i mentioned a number of other military related environmentalist with whole list of Services Using a strategy where i have said to the leaders that talking about investing in these services to make them worldclass really rise than double down that our foundational it is not enough to talk about its, we have to invest that means when you listen to leader, follow the money. I am requiring everyone in our facility to move money from now on non Foundational Services into Foundational Services we will save over 3. 5 billion that is a you can tell they are serious about a strategy. Number five if it is the only clinical priority to reduce the veteran suicide and this is something i think is absolutely unacceptable one per hour will take their life for suicide and i will tell you to many of us it is absolutely heart wrenching and something that you may or may not know that veterans come to a virginia and commit suicide on our properties for a number of reasons that one and then be they dont want their families to discover them. They know that we will handle it in the appropriate way and take care of them. But every day i am notified more and more. We have to do more and do better and innovate i know several innovators are working on that area but that whole point of describing those 13 areas of risk is a strategy to be transparent to find solutions and these five Priority Areas of greater choice, modernizing, improvi ng time limits the Additional Services and veteran suicide. Because this is really where we need you to innovate and the way that we solve the va problems to make a sustainable and stronger system for the countrys veterans added it is crucial for national security. I am excited about your energy and ideas you are contributing in we will forward to get an update on everything you are doing. Thank you very much. [applause]. Zach coleman discusses the new Climate Change report drafted by scientists from 13 federal agencies and whether the Trump Administration will approve it. Wired magazine Senior Writer explores the rise in Artificial Intelligence for Companies Like google and facebook and what it means for the future. Be sure to watch washington journal live at 7 00 a. M. Thursday morning. Members of the u. S. House and senate are back home working. Some members of congress tweeting out photos of events they attend. Heres alaska senator Lisa Murkowski visiting a healthcare clinic. Its in the remote village of alaska on the bering sea. In a tweet from barbara comstock, joined the veterans for the new department of veteran services office. This one is from congresswoman shelley. Libraries across maine are great places to fall in love with reading. They sent out a link for the