“Any good healthcare provider will tell you that early diagnosis of a problem can lead to better outcomes down the road – and IT leadership at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proved the enduring truth of that adage in the agency’s quick adjustment to a telework footing as the coronavirus pandemic emerged earlier this year.”
“Speaking during a Nov. 5 MeriTalk CIO Crossroads webinar, “Lessons from HHS – Cyber Defense to Virus Relief,” HHS Acting CIO Perryn Ashmore provided an inside look at the value of early detection and diagnosis of necessary IT adjustments that took place at the agency well before COVID-19 became a household name.”
“Ashmore, who was HHS Principal Deputy CIO earlier this year working with then-CIO Jose Arrieta, said the IT leadership team at the agency began to take action in mid-to-late February in anticipation of the big workplace changes that the pandemic would bring about.”
“’Early on… Jose and I got together with the other IT leadership teams across the department to really determine our risks,’ Ashmore said. ‘Working through that, we made investments in our backbone technology and doubled our capacity to certain locations within a week. We also addressed across the department any shortcomings we had in terms of virtual technology and virtual private networking. It was really a team effort.’”
“Given the nature of work at HHS, ‘most of our staffs were very used to supporting the idea of remote work,’ Ashmore said, ‘so we truly had a jump-start on many of the federal agencies and because of the work that we do at agency…’” Read the full article here.
Source: Early Diagnosis Speeds HHS, Industry to Pandemic Footing, Officials Say – By Kate Polit, November 25, 2020. MeriTalk.
