The Department of Defense, General Services Administration and NASA issued a final rule amending the Federal Acquisition Regulation to reduce agency burdens when leveraging GSA’s contract vehicles for information technology procurements. GSA said in a statement dated July 9th that agencies aren’t required to justify the use of the best procurement approach when issuing orders under GSA vehicles or governmentwide acquisition programs such as IT Schedule 70, STARS 2 and Alliant 2.

The agency noted that the new rule will help agencies rapidly acquire IT capabilities while also simplifying end-of-year IT spending activities. GSA’s procurement vehicles support 98 percent of agencies and account for over $24 billion in federal IT purchases every year.

The U.S. Air Force is reforming its health care model to establish separate treatment operations for active and non-active duty servicemen, Federal News Network reported Monday.

Lt. Gen. Dorothy Hogg, surgeon general for the Air Force, told the publication that the new model for preventative and personalized health care is aimed at clearly defining responsibilities under the military branch’s missions for medical readiness. The Air Force will assign provider care personnel to operational medical readiness squadrons and will focus on treating active-duty airmen.

Medical personnel assigned to such patients will work on military-unique functions such as annual preventative health assessments. Another squadron will handle non-active duty patients as well as the service members’ families. The Air Force plans to roll out the new model in 43 military medical facilities by the end of summer before transitioning the rest of the service by the end of 2020.

The Department of Homeland Security’s science and technology directorate plans to award $35 million in grants to accommodate the development of approaches to assist the agency’s counterterrorism operations. DHS said Monday that it seeks concepts using multiple disciplines including data analytics and engineering to address counterterrorism gaps and mitigate people’s inclination to violence.

“By partnering with universities, S&T delivers practical results by developing multidisciplinary, customer-driven solutions while training the next generation of homeland security experts,” said William Bryan, senior official performing the duties of the undersecretary for science and technology at DHS.

Efforts under the funding opportunity are intended to support the creation of a DHS center of excellence through the Terrorism Prevention and Counterterrorism Research initiative. Interested teams from universities and colleges may submit their proposals until Sept. 6. DHS S&T will host a webinar on Aug. 6 to explain details on the funding opportunity.

Margaret Weichert, acting director at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, has released a memorandum to guide agencies in the pursuit of performance management and award programs. Weichert said in a letter posted Friday that she advises agencies to only award and highly rate employees who have displayed highest performance levels.

This recommendation encourages agencies to implement strict performance standards to serve as grounds for assessments. Performance plans must help employees understand work objectives and evaluation standards, and supervisors must encourage the involvement of subordinates in the formulation of these plans, the letter noted.

Standards must also define levels of performance to describe an agency’s work expectations.

Three Department of Defense leaders have been selected to implement the approved recommendations within the four lines of effort of the Defense Innovation Board’s Software Acquisition and Practices study, FedScoop reported Monday. The four lines of effort are refactoring regulations, statutes and processes for software, creating cross-program and cross-service digital infrastructure, establishing new paths for digital talent and changing software procurement and development practices.

Joshua Marcuse, the board’s executive director, said those officials are Stacy Cummings, principal deputy assistant secretary of defense for acquisition enablers; Jose Gonzalez, executive director of human capital initiatives and Peter Ranks, deputy chief information officer for information enterprise. Marcuse noted that Ellen Lord, defense undersecretary for acquisition and sustainment and a 2019 Wash100 Award recipient, plans to submit to Congress a SWAP implementation plan in the next few weeks.

The Defense Innovation Board released the final report of the SWAP study in May, which includes 10 primary recommendations and 16 additional items to help the Pentagon address challenges regarding its approach to modernizing software.