Since the main reorganization and the reduction of employees of the US Department of Health and Humanitarian Services, it was announced for the first time last week, there was no little explanation yet about the reason. The entire departments were cut off. There were also no analyzes on how to manage information technology and digital infrastructure systems throughout HHS, how their security will be preserved and how to ensure program operations after planned disorder.
Without transparency about the agency’s plans after the discounts, legislators and stakeholders in the field of health care can only speculate the effects that employees and discounts will cause on these information technology systems and the people who depend on them. It is often unclear whether some divisions have any purchase or financial supervision or strategic continuity.
HHS via email on Monday that Minister Robert F. Kennedy and other leaders focus on employee discounts on “extra or unnecessary administrative jobs”, providing information as a background from the deputy secretary of the press and referring us to the previous one statementHHS Fact paper Social media for Minister Kennedy mail On x.
Knowledge loss in the CIO office
We met two people this week with internal knowledge of the recent discounts in the office of the chief information employee and the driving of the contract in a data project that is still operating.
“It was a great shock to everyone,” said a former leader who has a rich biography in the leadership of the health technology program through many federal agencies.
They said, “The division of the entire information technology was RIFD,” referring to the applicable discounts. “This includes our chief information staff, our chief security officer and all the information technology people who run the agency’s information technology.”
At the Management Services Office, which takes into account human resources and contracts, “they were all RIFD”.
They said that the former mixed employee is full with a direct knowledge of OCIO operations, taking the retirement option that maintains his advantages and pushed the activity until September 30.
And they said to Health care news Tuesday. “None of the big presidents had any insight into this. Nothing. No one.”
According to the deputy secretary of HHS, who offers a background, through the 28 divisions of the administration, the administration had 41 information officials.
The source said that the idea that there are many owners of ownership to be excessive simplification when the huge amount of data and systems of the second largest federal ministry in the country is considered.
“It was very heavy,” they confessed. “Part of that was the specialization of systems, the special knowledge you need with these systems, the capabilities you need, and some development teams that you need because they have very unique applications – especially in [National Institutes of Health]”Explain.
“They are changing frequently because you are in a development environment. You must be ready and be very flexible and graceful, and you must have different types of security papers and government compliance that you need for these systems.”
While some believe that the ministry’s CIO names were “regional”, the huge number of systems and their complexities explains a certain degree of necessity.
They said, “He has no HHS not uncommon,” adding that there are efforts to unite CIO roles.
But with Higher executive service All employees from OCIO – through the “FORK In The Road” program and volunteer retirement or by reducing on April 1 – went impossible to measure the experience of politics and governance in HHS. It was placed from HHS in cleansing some job employees who have collected 20-30 years of institutional knowledge.
“We were all politics, we were all the ruling, we did not return to it [Office of Management and Budget]The source said, “Being the arm of the policy, I have pulled it. Now, we cannot transfer any of the information you need for Congress, OMB or financing – and we cannot issue policies and instructions,” the source said.
When asked about the current holes in overseeing and operating the digital infrastructure of the administration, this person recorded attention to cybersecurity and data reports.
“Well, we left the progress of cybersecurity,” they said.
“You affect development, affect growth, affect research systems, and affect facilities systems, and even tracking these high -value assets is an effect because these are important important systems,” they added. “Now we have anyone to inform him too, because they essentially got rid of SES who manage security.”
Some HHS leaders have been offered to the option to move to a new job – far away in Alaska, Montana or New Mexico, according to National Public Radio a report.
According to what was reported, a senior leader was offered to be transferred to work in Indian health services.
“They told him to move to Montana, and it was the one who was leading all rule and politics,” they said.
La Monte Yarborough, the chief leading information security officer in HHS since January 2022, who was previously the position of CISO for the HHS Inspector Office last year, has spoken of awareness -raising efforts in the administration to enhance cybersecurity stances for health care.
We contacted HHS again on Tuesday, and we asked for a statement on how to drop SES from OCIO employees in defining the department to excess or unnecessary administrative positions, and we will update this story if there is another response to our questions.
Delete the entire operations
HHS, who was affected by the power reduction discounts, said. “Even if there are employees of the program, to work effectively in the government, you still have contracts,” they said.
“Still needs government equipment, [personal identity verification] Cards for contractors. None of this can happen without what the official’s support describes. It is a special problem for our division to it because it does things like overseeing our cloud environment and managing government sites.
“At the present time, you have scenarios in which this tractor operates, but they do not have artistic control at the present time because all the owners of IT and government officials are RIFD.”
HHS noticed that there are “dozens of IT departments”, along with 40 purchase departments and eight senior financial officials.
The administration said that reorganizing it from 28 to 15 parts is necessary, and it is now separating the structure of each section that is re -defined to simplify the operations, enhance the response to the American people, and improves the health of the nation in the end as part of the initiative “Make America healthy again”.
“I don’t think there is any plan for how to do this now,” said this person. “Meanwhile, you have everything that exists without supervision or even the ability to get things up in the meantime.”
According to SES OCIO Insider to which we spoke to, HHS looks forward to the centralization of development in IT centers at the National Health Institutes.
“This is not really their mission,” they said. In addition to supporting universities and jobs in the National Institutes of Health, “they must now support all the information technology structure and be the central axis,” adding: “They do not even have network plans or understand all components.”
Possible cracks can follow discounts
“I think the first immediate rift is the lack of contract employees to renew some of these contracts,” said HHS Information Technology Officer.
This team is supposed to merge with the assistant secretary for planning and evaluation to create a new strategy office.
They said: “I think there is a lot of work that must be done to know how to maintain the basic movement, both consciously or also in the future.”
They added, citing programs such as Head Start, for children’s health insurance program, government research financing financing, many university partnerships and lead pencils to develop new treatments.
“The clinical center has been closed,” they explained. “People were more tense during this time than they were during Covid because you did not have the freedom to treat people.”
Without anyone overseeing HHS contracts, whatever they are, cybersecurity and innovation there will go to the contracted federal workforce.
“But again, they just launched all the people who run the contracts and run [human resources]They said.
Ethics link to the appointed employees
After two decades of service, SES OCIO Insider also said that he could predict the location of the agency’s direction, “especially when they started pushing us to offices.”
President Donald Trump asked about the productivity of federal employees working from the home and ordered to return to personal work by the end of January. In some cases, overcrowding in offices To rely on communication It also reduced employee productivity and the provision of troubled services.
“We had no office space. We had no space … you had no privacy or secret,” they said. Contractors can hear “every word you said.”
The ends quickly came that some of the employees supervising the contracts did not see their RIF messages via e -mail after 5 am on April 1 when they were closed from networks in the middle of the day.
HHS IT employee, who was with the agency for more than one contract (speaks on the condition that his identity is not disclosed because they expect their official termination of the benefits and payment to be June 2), has a direct practical knowledge of data contracts. They described sitting on their office and they could not suddenly reach anything, including their email.
“I think now, given that we have not provided complete and accurate information to separate us, we are still waiting for clarity in some of these details before we can move forward and start new jobs.”
They also said they might be on a short menu to be reformulated, as they were appointed to oversee the HHS program currently active.
However, “Ethics that prohibits federal employees to work as a contractor on the things they previously participated in,” note.
“From what I understand, the contracts, and the big writing in the government are at risk, and some are ended or reduced, so I think it is certainly not the contracts.”
Andrea Fox is a great health care editor.
Email: Afox@himss.org
Healthcare is Hosz News.