“Agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) project $6.6 billion in IT portfolio expenditures for FY20 and a cut of $400 million, to $6.2 billion, for FY21, according the IT Dashboard, a data source from the Office of Management and Budget. Agency CIOs provide data for the Dashboard, and for FY21 their projections are based on the President’s FY21 budget. We believe that the $6.2 billion Dashboard estimate represents the low water mark for FY21 HHS IT for three reasons—congressional priorities, pandemic, and campaign promises.
Congressional priorities: For the past three years, Congress has provided significant increases for HHS over the Trump Administration budget requests. The House-passed FY21 appropriations bill signals that pattern will be repeated.
Pandemic: The FY21 budget was submitted before the coronavirus pandemic and the influx of hundreds of billions of dollars in emergency appropriations approved by Congress…”
“HHS IT projects are more likely to be subject to increased oversight, including required business cases and more frequent reporting. For FY21, projects considered Major IT for HHS include a CMS platform for consumers and small businesses to shop for coverage in the health insurance marketplace ($480 million), an FDA Regulatory Submission Receipt and Analysis system to support electronic submissions and business process automation ($47 million), and NIH’s Electronic Research Administration (eRA) electronic processing system for extramural research grants ($39 million). Funding levels listed are for FY21 only; business cases for each Major IT project include full cost profiles.
HHS IT Infrastructure is at $2.0 billion for FY20… Read the full article here.
Source: HHS IT Spending Poised for Growth – By Maureen Holohan, October 26, 2020. Federal Budget IQ.
