MODERNIZING ARMY HUMAN RESOURCES
improving Reserve HR and Pay By LT. Col. Paul B. Phillabaum, Deputy Project Manager, Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army
Your Family medical history and medical allergies will be immediately available to every doctor or nurse who treats you within DoD and VA health systems. With the ability to view consistent and comprehensive patient data, medical providers will be able to give you better care. care, VLER Health is a way to send those requests for care out to the private sector and, most important, to bring that data back. This ensures you have a complete medical record that captures all information about all the care that you receive. We are committed to a fully operational iEHR, no later than 2017, with clinical capabilities deployed in Hampton Roads, Va., and San Antonio by 2014—a significant challenge, but one that is critical for our nation’s service members, veterans and beneficiaries.
For more information about the DoD/VA IPO, visit www.tricare.mil/tma/ipo. To learn more about the role electronic health records play in medicine today, go to www.healthit.hhs.gov.
The development of a multi-component personnel system supports the Total Army concept, by enabling human resources professionals to more easily meet the personnel and pay needs of all Soldiers, regardless of component. Army G-1 is working to modernize Army human resources through the Integrated Personnel and Pay System-Army. Standardizing the way it manages Soldier information, and more important, Soldier pay, could significantly improve the administrative process, as Soldiers transition between active and Reserve components. The new system will eliminate the need to use multiple systems in order to access personnel and pay records. Commanders of multi-component units will directly benefit from IPPS-A’s capabilities. In order to obtain similar information for Soldiers, commanders, administrators and human resources professionals currently must use multiple systems, making it difficult to track Soldiers who are deployed, mobilized, on extended orders or in long-term training. According to Brig. Gen. Tammy Smith, the director of Human Capital Core Enterprise, the new system will reduce processing time and help commanders maintain better visibility of their Soldiers. “Currently, the lack [of] standardization between components can result in a lag when updates are made in the field. IPPS-A will give commanders a multi-component view of their units’ personnel information in one system.” IPPS-A will also help Reserve Soldiers maintain their benefits, personnel and training information in a single, comprehensive record. — Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, Changes to the Army Reserve’s current system will Army Chief of Staff be implemented to enable IPPS-A to be an effective tool. These changes will involve transitioning the Military Pay mission to Army Human Resources, subsuming many legacy systems, and connecting other systems to IPPS-A, to create a more comprehensive system. IPPS-A’s multi-component capabilities will streamline Army Reserve human resources and Soldier pay by creating a single comprehensive personnel and pay record, allowing personnel actions (e.g., promotions, changes in dependents, changes in duty status) to trigger associated pay actions. For the ordinary Soldier, IPPS-A will help human resources professionals decrease the number of promotion- and deployment-related pay issues, saving time and frustration. Col. Barbara Owens, Army Reserve G-1, said that, in order to prepare for IPPS-A deployment, Soldiers, both TPU and AGR, should ensure their information is up to date. “Each major command has a representative identified to facilitate IPPS-A’s release. The first release will be populated with information from our legacy systems; therefore it is important that personnel information is accurately reflected.” IPPS-A is currently under development and targeted to launch its first release in 2013. Beginning with the system’s first release, Army Reserve human resources professionals will have access to a database that is able to produce nine reports and a new Soldier Record Brief. The SRB will be available to the reserve components for the first time and will bring all three components in line with each other, eventually replacing the active component’s Enlisted Record Brief and Officer Record Brief.
“As we move forward, all three components will play… critical role[s] in dealing with the challenges of an increasingly complex and uncertain environment.”
To learn more about IPPS-A’s development and its benefits, please visit the program website at http://www.IPPS-A.army.mil. Editor’s Note: LTC Paul B. Phillabaum is an AGR Acquisition Officer serving as the IPPS-A Deputy Project Manager WARRIOR–CITIZEN
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