SharkTank - Testing Innovative Ideas and Saving Veteran Lives in the Process

We’ve cultivated a culture of IT leadership through OIT’s Future Senior Leader Academy and its Future Executive Leader Academy within the Leadership Development Framework. Academy participants work together over several months to complete a project-based curriculum focusing on leadership development and organizational awareness. Participants close the program by competing in a “Shark Tank-style” competition where they pitch IT-related projects that implement, sustain, or contribute to the evolution of OIT’s modernization.

One project, the Bed Management System Sepsis Alert, reduces fatalities and shortens hospital stays due to untimely treatment of sepsis in Veteran patients. Since its implementation, the alert system decreased hospital stays by four and a half days and total health care cost per patient by an estimated $63,824. The projected results also estimated 17 avoided patient fatalities through early intervention and a 98 percent improvement in false positive sepsis identification.

Another initiative provides Veterans with a universal identification card that serves as both a benefits card and proof of military service, eliminating the need for Veterans to carry (and potentially lose) important identification paperwork. The card also allows Veterans to prove their status to local companies that offer Veteran discounts.

The return on investment of the academies’ projects is also enormous. To date, the programs cost approximately $500,000 — dwarfed by the estimated millions in savings from projects that are currently operational.