mr. pruden, you talked about v.a. prosthetics research has lagged in recent years. mr. oros talked about outcomes but you are talking more generally in terms of the research. what impact -- and i shouldn't speak for you, i should let you say what research you were referring to. and after you tell us that piece, what impact has that had on veterans and the services that they need? >> the v.a. has stepped up in a number of exassyits in the past few -- capacities in the past few years, but d.o.d. has taken the lead on the development of the decka arm. in years past, v.a. has been one of its key roles and one of the reasons exists is to provide specialized medical equipment for our combat wounded and for our veterans and v.a. needs to have the capacity and focus when d.o.d. and globe war on terror dollars go away. this ties into the discussion about centers of excellence at walter reed, brook army medical center. when these dollars go away, those d.o.d. facilities will scale back their capacity for rehabilitation and research. and what we are calling for is v.a. through the

mr. pruden chemie talked about va prosthetics has lagged in recent years. now mr.talked about outcomes. you were talking about more generally in terms of research. one impact i shouldn't speak for you. i should let you say what research you were referring to. and then if you click after you tell us that peace, what impact does that have on veterans and the services they need? >> the va has stepped up in a number of capacities in the past few years, but as mr. mayer pointed out earlier, dod has taken the lead on the development and all these advanced technology things. in years past, va has been one of his key roles in one of the reason exists is supervised specialized medical equipment for a combat wounded, four of veterans. nva really needs to have the capacity and focus on research for medical equipment when dod and global war on terror dollars go away. this also ties into the discussion about centers of excellence at walter reid, brooke army medical center and so forth are doing these dollars go away, they dod facilities will certainly scale back their capacity

mr. pruden, captain pruden i should say, the electronic contract management system and talk to us about the fact that there requires 300 steps to get the request in. can you comment on not? >> i'm going to ask mr. doyle who is our expert in this area to the contract system. >> that is new and that will be putting in place as part of the system, which is the part where they are requiring people in this case, prosthetics is transferred over to the contracting office. we have had the management system and va for several years and that is what art contract writing tool and effect. and that is what we will use to write the contracts for the prosthetics that come across to us. as for the 300 steps, i will say that i know it is not the easiest system to use and can be laborious. i would have to say what the individual does he have a came up with the 300 steps. that is a new figure on me however. >> i guess my concern is that we are talking about lightbulbs or tissues or any sort of items that we need to purchase or contract that within the va, that is what dean. but we are talking about and the wh