“Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Department of Health and Human Services has been developing rapid, innovative solutions to support national response efforts. As the U.S. enters into phased reopening, Perryn Ashmore, now retired CIO of the agency, projects how the department will evolve to meet its mission.”
“Ashmore, who retired in May, served in HHS’ CIO Office during a majority of the department’s COVID-19 response and took over the role after Jose Arrieta’s departure in August. One of HHS’ major achievements was the launch of HHS Protect, which has enabled data sharing in near real time and provided information on the current state of the American health care system…”
“While the department was well positioned to combat the pandemic, Ashmore said that there are still areas that need to be improved and simplified from a usability standpoint. For example, he believes that two-factor authentication is too brittle.”
“’As more government employees become engaged directly with the products, it makes for a better private-public partnership because now you have a much more substantial understanding,’ Ashmore said. ‘We’re all in this together, and we all have to understand the various risks that exist and when and where and how we can come together to address that.'”
“Following recent supply chain hacks on Colonial Pipeline and Solarwinds, Ashmore suggested that HHS focus its efforts on security and resiliency. However, as agencies focus on securing their IT infrastructures, costs will inevitably rise.”
“’The concept of IT cost has to go away. It has to become, ‘This is the cost of doing business,’” Ashmore said. ‘There’s been a lot of progress made … We’ve gotten certain things worked out, but what we haven’t worked out is how to contract properly for cloud services, specifically infrastructure. If we could figure that out … we have a chance.'” Read the full article here.
Source: Former HHS CIO Reflects on Lessons Learned Throughout Pandemic – By Sarah Sybert, July 9, 2021. GovernmentCIO.
