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HHS IT Reform at the 6-Month Mark
Posted by Michael Carleton
At the Department of Health and Human Services, information technology is not only necessary for us to function as an organization, but is also a crucial component of the medical, public health, and social services we provide to the American people. As CIO, my focus has been on improving investment management and streamlining IT operations so that we can deliver better results that protect the health of all Americans and provide essential human services, especially for those who are least able to help themselves. Executing the 25 Point Implementation Plan to Reform Federal IT Management has helped HHS advance these goals over the past six months.
We have already closed ten data centers, and will be closing four more across the country before the end of this year. This will result not only in increased organizational efficiency but also significant cost savings. These data center consolidation savings are in addition to an estimated $80 million in telecommunications cost avoidance realized through the new Federal-government-wide Networx contract (in comparison to the prior FTS2001 contract).
The TechStat model has so far proven to be an effective tool for improving investment management at HHS. I led our first agency TechStat on April 27, 2011, a focused review of our Enterprise Human Resource and Planning (EHRP) investment. Through the TechStat, we improved governance of the investment by instituting monthly status checks that will monitor progress on our new EHRP strategy action plan. We now have a renewed focus on our ultimate objective: implementation of an end to end HR infrastructure that maximizes manager self-service tools, reduces costs and service lead times, and improves data integrity.
Moving to the cloud has been challenging, but also demonstrates the upside of not simply doing business as usual. For example, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) processes over 25,000 grants per year. In February of this year, we shifted the development environment for ACF’s comprehensive grants management system, GrantSolutions.gov, to a cloud-based infrastructure. Migrating the production environment to the cloud will allow ACF to support periods of high-volume processing.
HHS is also focused on key Administration priorities, such as the implementation of the Affordable Care Act. We have stood up integrated program teams to deliver IT solutions under an aggressive timeline, and are dedicated in pursuing additional cost savings through shared services. Improving investment management and streamlining IT operations through the IT Reform Plan allows us to concentrate on our agency mission, so we will continue to execute these Reforms in the months ahead.
Michael Carleton is the Chief Information Officer at the Department of Health and Human Services
