Targeting the VA with production federal ML behind us
Precision Federal is targeting opportunities at the Department of Veterans Affairs. We do not claim past VA contract performance — but we bring something most AI small businesses cannot: a production, ATO'd federal machine learning system at SAMHSA on sensitive health data, delivered by our founder and now the capability anchor of the firm.
The VA is the second-largest federal department by workforce, with a $350B+ budget, over 400,000 employees, 172 medical centers, and more than 1,100 outpatient sites. Veteran-centered AI is a strategic priority across the Veterans Health Administration (VHA), the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), the National Cemetery Administration (NCA), and the Office of Information and Technology (OIT). Precision Delivery Federal LLC (UEI Y2JVCZXT9HP5, CAGE 1AYQ0, SAM.gov active, SBA small business) is aligned for VA AI scopes where federal health data rigor, HIPAA awareness, and production ML discipline are the durable differentiators.
VA Innovation Ecosystem and the National AI Institute
The VA Innovation Ecosystem (VAIE) coordinates innovation investment across the enterprise — from the VHA Innovation Experience to VA Ventures to the Diffusion of Excellence program. Inside the Office of Research and Development, the National Artificial Intelligence Institute (NAII) operates as the VA's central AI authority, chartered in 2019 and increasingly active in veteran-centered ML across behavioral health, suicide prevention, cardiology, radiology, and community care analytics.
We are aligned for NAII-adjacent research partnerships, AI/ML prototype scopes funded through VA Research and Development, and cross-administration scopes where an AI small business with production federal health ML experience augments an academic research partner or prime.
VA mission areas we target
Veteran health records and clinical data modernization
VistA is the legacy VA EHR. The VA is migrating to Oracle Cerner Millennium — a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar program with significant data engineering, reconciliation, and AI-augmentation scope. Our data engineering and lakehouse architecture background transfers directly.
Claims processing AI for VBA
VBA handles millions of compensation, pension, education, and vocational rehabilitation claims. ML for claims triage, evidence retrieval, rater support, and duplicate-claim detection is an enduring priority. Agentic LLM systems with human-in-the-loop review gates. See Agentic AI.
Suicide prevention and behavioral health ML
REACH VET and related suicide-prevention models are among the VA's most visible AI deployments. Our SAMHSA behavioral health past performance is directly adjacent — we know the data, the governance, and the care-pathway considerations.
MyHealtheVet and patient-facing AI
MyHealtheVet is the VA patient portal with more than 10 million registered users. Patient-facing conversational agents, appointment scheduling AI, and personalized care navigation are durable scopes.
MISSION Act community care routing
The VA MISSION Act of 2018 expanded veteran access to community care. Referral routing ML, network adequacy analytics, and cost-of-care forecasting are active needs.
Scheduling, no-show, and capacity ML
No-show prediction, optimal-appointment recommendation, and surgical capacity planning reduce administrative burden and improve veteran access. Classical ML plus LLM augmentation.
HIPAA, FISMA, and VA-specific data protections
VA AI work sits on the most sensitive federal health data in the country. Beyond FISMA and NIST 800-53, our architectures respect:
- HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules — minimum necessary, access controls, audit logs, Business Associate Agreements when applicable.
- 38 U.S.C. 7332 — heightened protections for VA records containing information on drug abuse, alcoholism, HIV, and sickle cell anemia. Analogous to 42 CFR Part 2 on the HHS side.
- VA Directive 6500 and the VA Handbook 6500 series — the VA's information security program.
- FISMA Moderate and High — most VA systems run Moderate; patient-facing and clinical systems frequently High.
- SORN and Privacy Act — Systems of Records Notices for veteran-identifiable records.
We design to these controls from the first sprint. That architectural habit came from shipping the SAMHSA system through full ATO.
VistA, Oracle Cerner, and the EHR modernization context
The VA Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program replaces VistA with Oracle Cerner Millennium — the same commercial platform the DoD deployed under MHS GENESIS. The program has had well-publicized challenges with rollout pace and safety incident reporting. The AI/ML scope around EHRM is substantial:
- Data reconciliation ML between VistA and Cerner — identity resolution, duplicate-record detection, clinical-fact extraction from legacy notes.
- Clinical documentation AI — ambient scribe evaluation, coding suggestion, note-completeness scoring.
- Interoperability analytics — FHIR-based pipelines, care coordination scoring.
- Safety surveillance — anomaly detection on post-deployment data for early signals of degraded care.
Federal health ML from SAMHSA, federal health IT data platform experience — the toolchain maps.
VA SBIR and the veteran-centered research pipeline
The VA runs a smaller SBIR program than NIH or DoD but one that is sharply focused on veteran-centered problems: rehabilitation, prosthetics, traumatic brain injury, PTSD and mental health, telehealth, and health IT. We are monitoring VA SBIR solicitations and plan to submit on AI/ML and health data platform topics through our existing SBIR pipeline as relevant topics open. The SBIR reauthorization through 2031 adds runway for Phase II and commercialization follow-on.
Vets-First Verification Program and teaming
The VA operates the Vets-First Verification Program through the Center for Verification and Evaluation (CVE), giving contracting preference to Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (SDVOSBs) and Veteran-Owned Small Businesses (VOSBs) under the Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Act. Precision Federal is not a Vets-First verified firm. On set-aside acquisitions we team with CVE-verified primes as an AI/ML specialty subcontractor. On full-and-open and standard small-business-set-aside VA acquisitions we pursue directly.
T4NG2, CIO-SP4, and VA vehicles we pursue
- T4NG / T4NG2 — Transformation Twenty-One Total Technology modern. The primary VA IT IDIQ. We pursue subcontracting on AI/ML task orders.
- CIO-SP4 — NIH NITAAC government-wide IT vehicle with heavy VA usage. Subcontracting target.
- SEWP VI — NASA-managed government-wide solutions vehicle.
- VA BPAs and single-award IDIQs — for AI, data science, and data engineering scopes.
- OTAs through VA consortia — where applicable for AI prototypes.
Relevant NAICS for VA
- Primary NAICS 541512 — Computer Systems Design Services. SBA small business.
- Adjacent — 541511, 541519, 541715 (R&D in Physical/Life/Engineering Sciences) for research-heavy NAII scopes, 541612, 541990.
How VA program offices and primes engage us
Three patterns:
- VA SBIR prime or partner — on AI/ML and health IT topics where we can carry scope or pair with a veteran-focused research institution.
- VA subcontracting — to T4NG2, CIO-SP4, and Alliant 2 primes on AI/ML scope with SAMHSA-derived credibility.
- NAII and VAIE research engagement — as an AI small business capable of productionizing research prototypes into ATO-ready systems.
Email [email protected]. We respond within 24 hours. See also our SBIR partnering page.