Department of Health and Human Services

  • Health and Human Services\' Buyer\'s Club celebrated its one-year anniversary earlier this week by releasing a major solicitation. The request for proposal marks a growing recognition that improving the federal acquisition process is possible. Mark Naggar is the program manager for the HHS Buyer\'s Club. He tells Executive Editor Jason Miller about how his organization is helping the Office of Population Affairs reform how it buys technology. Naggar says few agencies are particularly good at carrying out IT projects involving services.

    June 05, 2015
  • The Department of Health and Human Services\' Buyers Club released a major solicitation for website development services using an agile development process. Mark Naggar, the program manager for the Buyers Club, said the two-stage methodology focuses on user needs first and foremost.

    June 05, 2015
  • Bryan Sivak, one of the leaders in the new wave of procurement thinking, will end his stay in government in the next month. Sivak joined HHS in June 2012 after founding the software firm InQuira, and spending time in state and local government. At HHS, he immediately went after some of the most frustrating parts of the federal procurement process. He developed the IDEA Lab and the HHS Buyers Club, led datapalooza events and helped to define the role of an agency CTO.

    March 30, 2015
  • The Department of Health and Human Services is suffering from what many believe are the two major reasons why shared services continues to lag in government.

    March 16, 2015
  • The latest round of updates to HealthCare.gov made the second open season for the Affordable Care Act work a lot better than the first. Now the Inspector General's office at the Department of Health and Human Services is looking for lessons learned from the development of the web site. Rob Vito is regional inspector general of the Office of the Inspector General for the Health and Human Services Department. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he shared three major problems with the agency's approach to building HealthCare.gov.

    March 11, 2015
  • Improper payments associated with the military's TRICARE health system added up to about 0.3 percent of DoD's overall costs. Improper payments associated with Medicare were more than 10 percent of overall costs for the Health and Human Services Department. Vijay D'Souza is director of health care issues at the Government Accountability Office. On In Depth with Francis Rose, he said TRICARE's low rate of improper payments might be too good to be true.

    February 23, 2015
  • Deputy Secretary Bruce Andrews said while lawmakers decide whether to fund the White House's $3 million request to set up an Idea Lab, the department already released a new online tool to collect employee ideas.

    February 13, 2015
  • President Obama's fiscal 2016 budget proposes merging components of the Agriculture Department and FDA that handle food safety, as well as business and trade agencies.

    February 03, 2015
  • WASHINGTON (AP) — Sure, $4 trillion sounds like a lot. But it goes fast when your budget stretches from aging highways to medical care to space travel and more. Here’s an agency-by-agency look at how…

    February 03, 2015
  • The last several administrations have pushed federal agencies to share services they have in common. The idea is to cut redundancy and boost efficiency. Shared services have certainly been a priority for the Obama Office of Management and Budget. Some managers worry that shared services means they'll have to bring in more contractors. But in fact several departments offer a wide range of administrative services available for sharing. One of them is the Program Support Center at Health and Human Services. Paul Bartley is director of the Center. He joined Tom Temin on the Federal Drive with more on the programs, and how to make them catch on.

    January 29, 2015
  • What is health information technology? How can it transform the practice of healthcare? What is happening to facilitate the adoption and use of Health IT? Join host Michael Keegan as he explores these questions and more with Karen DeSalvo, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

    January 23, 2015
  • Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner announced she will be leaving the agency at the end of February. During her tenure, Tavenner has overseen the roll out of key provisions of the Affordable Care Act.

    January 16, 2015
  • Jenny Mattingley hosts a roundtable discussion with federal CIOs and CTOs, about how their jobs have changed over the years, and the future opportunities and challenges they see on the horizon. December 5, 2014

    December 05, 2014
  • The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid wants to change how it delivers and measures Medicaid. It launched the Medicaid Accelerator Program back in July. The goal is to get Medicaid services and payments to its beneficiaries faster than ever before. It's crowdsourcing best practices for payment and services delivery from states and other health providers. Jason McNamara is one of the leaders behind IAP and a senior technical advisor for CMS in the Health and Human Services Department. He spoke with Emily Kopp and Tom Temin on the Federal Drive about how CMS wants to pass its improvements onto the states.

    December 02, 2014
  • Administrator Marilyn Tavenner told House Oversight and Government Reform Committee members on Nov. 14 that CMS fixed 22 technical recommendations before open enrollment began. The letter came on the cusp of yet another contentious hearing on the role of former White House CTO Todd Park in overseeing and developing the initially troubled portal.

    November 20, 2014