Chairman Hall, Ranking Member Lamborn, and distinguished Members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today.

Stratizon Corporation is a veteran owned Software-as-a-Service company, which has utilized the concepts of artificial intelligence to successfully design a software platform and application solely focused on improving the VA’s claims processing system.

We have gained valuable insight into the underlying success of using AI to solve the VA’s claims processing system. First, the technology available in the marketplace is adaptable, flexible, scalable, proven, and cost-effective. Technology is not to be resisted but embraced. Second, success will be highly dependent upon the perspective in which AI solutions are constructed. A true veteran-centric solution must be constructed through the eyes and situation of the veteran to satisfy the requirements of the state and federal policies and VA systems and not constructed through the eyes of the multiple government entities to independently present the bureaucracy to the veteran.

Stratizon applied this perspective in successfully piloting for the U.S. Navy, three unique web-based “intelligent” solutions that demonstrated how the quality of life for sailors could be significantly improved by replacing confusing, complicated, paper intensive, and manually-driven enterprise processes with web-based, easy-to-use, automated, and complete self-service solutions, or what we define as “intelligent user interfaces” or “IUIs”. “IUIs” can also be designed for numerous veteran events such as transitions from active to veteran status or applications and appeals for VA compensation and health benefits.

The Commonwealth of Virginia’s Department of Veteran Services, working with the Joint Leadership Council of Virginia representing 32 veteran service organizations, is implementing such a solution called TurboVet™. Building on a successful pilot in 2007, the Governor of Virginia has included funds in his FY 09 budget that begins on July 1, 2008, for full production. TurboVet™ will provide Virginia veterans, or an authorized representative, the ability to log online at Virginia.gov, via a personal computer or device such as this Apple IPhone, and select an event they need assistance with. Initially a series of statements and questions regarding their status or particular event will be presented. Their personal data currently on file with the state will be retrieved so they may confirm or validate their data, thus improving data integrity and eliminating redundant data entry. The system will use embedded decision logic to react intelligently to their input to continually refresh and display only the necessary event questions, thus eliminating the frustration of redundant and unnecessary questions. A list will be displayed of all state and federal benefits the veteran has earned with all corresponding documents spanning multiple agencies required for the veteran to submit, thus providing a peace of mind to the veteran their solution is holistic. Each document will then be progressively, simultaneously, and perfectly auto-populated with the proper data, thus eliminating data transcriptions errors and numerous processing delays. Finally, the veteran will have the option to save and print each document locally and, at their discretion, electronically submit their data securely to all participating authorities and systems to be processed and tracked fully and completely.

Virginia’s success in using an AI platform is dependent upon the continued support and cooperation of all parties, both political and technical. Decision makers need to remain committed to this paradigm shift to the future and must always provide the best institutional knowledge available to ensure the TurboVet™ IUI™ not only becomes that benchmark of service but also remains the benchmark. We need technical cooperation between state agencies to take advantage of TurboVet™’s ability to seamlessly exchange data with disparate IT systems. We need cooperation and support at the federal level. Federal supervisors in Roanoke have projected that a minimum of 100 days of processing time will be eliminated when the TurboVet system is implemented at only the state level. Stratizon foresees few problems in exchanging data between TurboVet™ and VA systems such as VistA and VetsNet. We fervently believe there could be significant process cycle time improvement and extraordinary cost savings at the state and federal level if veteran’s data at the state level could first be “pre-verified” against recognized “authoritative” national VA databases and then seamlessly exchanged upon claims submission and during the claims management process. Virginia’s goal is to fulfill the vision of H.R. 3047 and have a claim prepared properly with attached medical evidence and documentation for electronic submission to federal adjudicators for rating, and have those claims calculated fairly, consistently, and automatically.

In summary, using a properly designed AI system would dramatically improve the VA claims processing systems by improving the access to customer solution and service for veterans and their family members, reducing the costs to the state in staff administration, training, and paperwork, and improving the accuracy, throughput, and expediency of claim submissions by the state for VA adjudication.

On behalf of the Stratizon Corporation, I would like to thank the Chairman and all committee members for this opportunity to be here today.

In today’s world the gathering, administration and management of employee data has become a serious issue for corporate America. In particular, when an employee is confronted with a business or personal life event, the employee is required to provide sensitive personal data to his or her employer or to corroborate the data the employer already has on file for the employee. The employer, on the other hand, is under great pressure and exposure to liability to process the event and the data surrounding it swiftly, correctly, confidentially and completely. In most cases, the individual providing the data and the organization processing the data waste an extraordinary amount of time and energy ensuring all personal data associated with the event is properly, accurately and securely processed.

For the individual, incorrect data processing can mean endless hours of wasted time, frustration, and even financial loss. For the organization, incorrect data processing means significant and unnecessary overhead expense due to decreased business productivity and additional time and materials to correct data errors and to account for lost data. Ultimately, the corporate liability for improperly or poorly managing the business or personal life event for the employee is an unacceptable business risk which can harm the employee/employer relationship and damage the reputation of the organization.

The solution for this challenge is for enterprises to migrate from enterprise employer centric solutions to customer employee centric solutions through the use of open-standards web-based XML technology and artificial intelligence concepts. Stratizon Corporation has engaged this vision and has developed an open-standards J2EE technology platform that creates software applications to display on-screen an Intelligent User Interface (IUI™).

An Intelligent User Interface (IUI™) is an online series of questions, consolidated from all the questions from a variety and multitude of forms and applications pertaining to a specific business or life event, and embedded with decision logic encapsulating the major life event, to manage the event for the user by intelligently responding to that user’s input. In conjunction with accessing and utilizing the user’s data stored in the enterprise in multiple and disparate systems, a complete picture materializes for the use and a total solution is rendered.

The process begins when a user logs onto a website or access device such as an Apple IPhone and selects a button that describes the personal event they are confronted with. The IUI™ firsts presents the data the organization has on file for the user and allows the user to confirm or change the information. The IUI™ then presents a series of questions regarding the event so the required missing data the organization needs from the user so the organization can process the event for the user and the organization

This allows the IUI™ to quickly complete all steps of the event process, auto-populate all required documents with the option to print or digitally sign, and send the data to the enterprise in the proper format to process the event. The result is a life event processed simply, correctly and completely. The benefits are the reduction in human frustration, elimination of paper, event processing time and administrative data management costs for both the user and the organization.

These customized intelligent user interfaces becomes the “edge of the enterprise” presenting a less bureaucratic image, providing a less bureaucratic process to match, and providing several advantages.

First, there is a remarked improvement in end user satisfaction and customer service because solutions have been engineered with a focus on intelligence event solutions and not just intelligent document solutions. It is more about the data than the document. This innovative approach to user-centric design significantly reduces user frustration and costs by more efficiently and cost effectively integrating, delivering and managing the entire process and the requisite data, forms and documents required from end users.

 Second, an AI platform delivers better collective “time to value” for end users and organizations because it is sophisticated yet simple in its presentation. By designing a solution from an end-user’s “holistic event” perspective versus an enterprise’s “silo-driven” perspective, we ensure an event is managed with 100% completeness for the user and the enterprise.

Third, an open standards XML platform has better flexibility in working with existing corporate systems. Today’s data systems need to integrate with multiple web servers, application servers and database server architectures and seamlessly integrate into an organization’s portal strategy. For the enterprise, this means lower cost, easier scalability, and faster development and delivery of a solution.

In summary, an open standards XML artificial intelligent platform provides a powerful development environment for rapidly developing and deploying electronically enabled intelligent user interface applications to provide the following benefits:

Consumer/Family Benefits

• Improves end user productivity and morale
• Reduces the pain associated with life-event related paperwork
• Eliminates difficult searches across multiple web sites and departments
• Reduces need for forms
• Ensures the proper data is completed and submitted accurately and timely
• Improves end user satisfaction with organization service and support

Organization Benefits

• Streamlines data and forms processing via the web
• Establishes a consistent interface for all forms-based events
• Reduces administrative costs of providing service
• Reduces training costs of customer support and service personnel
• Reduces personnel time to manage forms inventory and life event packets
• Reduces redundant data entry by customer support and service personnel
• Improves data integrity for the organization information technology systems
• Reduces process cycle-times
• Reduces process re-work through increased data integrity
• Provides workflow capabilities
• Reduces cost of maintaining and handling supply of paper forms