“The COVID-19 pandemic is not over, but it’s already altered how certain agencies and federal health-related organizations are approaching the development and procurement of technology-based tools.”
“Senior professionals recently briefed Nextgov on their observations regarding the government’s health contracting during this global health crisis.”
“’We’ve noticed a shift to reduce the number of contract vehicles agencies turn to in order to procure [information technology] services,’ National Government Services Inc. President Andrew Conn said.”
“NGS has been working on federal health care contracting for more than 50 years and is a major contractor for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Conn added that this trend he pointed to ‘seems to focus more on the ‘best-in-class’ types of contract vehicles to allow federal agencies to partner with top-tier expertise and solution providers to help resolve issues.'”
“Almost as soon as the novel coronavirus emerged, government entities had to rapidly adopt practices, policies and technologies to confront new and complex priorities, like mass telework and telehealth initiatives to keep personnel safe in their homes. Joseph Flynn, public sector chief technology officer at Dell-owned software company Boomi, noted there were weighty challenges that accompanied health-tech contracting, even early on. The ability to get contractors onboarded quickly to respond to the needs of organizations during the pandemic was slow in his view.”
“’The inherent bureaucracy that drives procurement cycles is not meant to work in an accelerated manner,’ Flynn said. ‘As such, much of the work that was awarded was going to larger health integrators where standing contracts for time and materials work could be leveraged. This limited opportunities to many smaller, boutique integrators and product vendors that may have had a great solution for a problem but procurement processes could not keep up with the demand for these smaller goods and service providers.'”
“Trillions of dollars were allocated by Congress to help federal agencies purchase resources to face the pandemic and many used less-typical acquisition methods—such as other transaction authorities and other vehicles—to put that money to use quickly…” Read the full article here.
Source: How the Pandemic Changed the Government’s Health-Focused Buying – By Brandi Vincent, September 27, 2021. Nextgov.
