The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Energy, Veterans Affairs (VA), U.S. Army, and U.S. Navy inappropriately awarded 1,849 contracts to businesses that had tax debts in 2015 and 2016. […]
To make cybersecurity more effective in Federal healthcare, security professionals need to bring a broad swath of folks to the table to build security into technology from the beginning while still enabling the mission, said a panel of Federal chief information security officers and cybersecurity leaders at ACT-IAC’s Health Security, Privacy, and Practice Forum on April 23. […]
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) today critiqued the lack of IT interoperability, among other shortfalls, in the Departments of Veterans Affairs (VA) and Health and Human Services’ Indian Health Service (IHS) memorandum of understanding (MOU) to improve healthcare for American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) veterans. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) FISMA (Federal Information Security Modernization Act) audit for fiscal year 2018, released today by HHS’ Office of the Inspector General (OIG), shows the agency improved its performance in the “Identify” and “Protect” areas of the framework, while holding steady in other areas. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and U.S. Digital Service (USDS) are teaming up to determine a new way to hire IT talent for Federal positions. […]
While the 21st Century Cures Act (Cures Act) signed into law by President Obama in 2016 has as its main mission “to help accelerate medical product development and bring new innovations and advances to patients who need them faster and more efficiently,” the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) wants to emphasize accelerating the flow of information between the healthcare provider and the patient. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is testing the use of blockchain technology to track unaccompanied minors when they enter Federal custody, said an HHS official on Thursday. […]
Officials from various Federal agencies are focusing on data-driven approaches, utilizing blockchain, and business-focused functions to brace for a digital future. […]
Security controls across eight Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) operating divisions (OPDIVs) need improvement to better detect and counter cyberattacks, the agency’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) said in a report issued today. […]
On Thursday, the U.S. government released its Fourth U.S. Action Plan for Open Government that will work to making Federal government data more accessible, ensuring the grant-making process is more accountable, and Federally funded scientific research is more accessible. […]
In a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) blog post, released Thursday, the HHS Office of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Presidential Innovation Fellows (PIF) announced that they have completed a 14-week pilot program that sought to “improve clinical trials, experimental therapies, and data-driven solutions” for challenges stemming from cancer, Lyme disease, and other tick-borne diseases using Federal data and artificial intelligence (AI). […]
The Program Support Center (PSC), a part of the Department of Health and Human Services, issued a request for proposals on Thursday to procure Intelligent Automation/Artificial Intelligence (IAAI) solutions services and products. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week released its Health Industry Cybersecurity Practices, a set of voluntary cybersecurity guidelines for the private sector that leverages the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Cybersecurity Framework to address cybersecurity issues across healthcare organizations of all sizes. […]
Senior officials from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) discussed how the new HHS Accelerate blockchain, the first blockchain to receive an authority to operate (ATO), can help the department improve acquisitions through greater visibility during Sunday’s episode of Government Matters. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services on Nov. 28 issued a draft strategy that the agency said is “designed to help reduce administrative and regulatory burdens on clinicians” stemming from use of health information technologies including electronic health records. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a report on Monday, calling for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to improve its approach to cybersecurity for medical devices already on the market, and praising FDA’s early response to the report’s criticisms. […]
Health insurance provider Anthem has agreed to pay the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights (OCR) $16 million to settle what HHS called “potential violations” of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in connection with an Anthem data breach in late 2014 and early 2015 in which cyber criminals stole data on nearly 79 million individuals including names, Social Security numbers, medical identification numbers, and email addresses, among others. […]
A new report from the Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) CTO calls out the department and its individual agencies for keeping their data in silos, and calls for a department-wide data governance framework. […]
The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General recommended in a new report that the Food and Drug Administration pay even more attention to medical device cybersecurity during the process in which it evaluates products for approval to market in the U.S. […]
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said today it awarded $225 million of contracts to three companies to help the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) improve its medical review tools. […]
Beth Killoran, CIO of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) since November 2015, has left the position for a new role at the Office of the Surgeon General, and CTO Ed Simcox has been named acting CIO, an HHS official confirmed to MeriTalk. […]
The state of Maryland is not properly securing Medicaid data and information systems, according to a Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) report released today that found “numerous significant system vulnerabilities” in the state’s IT systems. […]
MeriTalk today announced the winners of its inaugural FITARA Awards program, recognizing six Federal agencies who have made tremendous strides in modernizing their IT environments and one congressional leader who has worked tirelessly to promote the reform of IT acquisitions and adoption of cyber best practices. […]
Obstacles to data sharing are holding back the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) in Federal agencies. However, the use cases and potential of AI makes it worth the struggle, according to experts. […]
The White House isn’t doing enough to address in a public forum a range of artificial intelligence issues and needs to institute a public process to seek comments on AI-related issues, said a group of six industry groups and more than 80 individuals from academia and the private sector in a July 4 letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). […]
The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s oversight and investigations subcommittee today heard testimony from Department of Health and Human Services and Government Accountability Office officials in the closed portion of a hearing called to examine GAO audits of HHS cybersecurity programs. […]
Federal agencies might not meet the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) data center closure goals, according to a new Government Accountability Office (GAO) report. Based on current projections, only 7,221 of the 12,062 data centers that agencies reported in August 2017 will be closed by September of this year. […]
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) want to modernize, but are being held back by a vestige of the 20th century–clunky, outdated technology platforms. […]
The Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) awarded the $207 million Next Generation Information Technology Services (NGITS) Blanket Purchase Agreement (BPA). Featuring six prime contract holders, this agreement will support a wide range of IT services, including end-of-life support for outdated technology, implementation of new technologies, and customer support initiatives. […]
According to Agari, an email security provider, one in 10 emails ending in .gov are fraudulent. And government systems are the second-most popular target of phishing attacks among all vertical markets, behind only healthcare. […]