HHS Systems Needed, but Procurement Is Ailing

For the past several years, state and local governments have complained about how federal money for IT systems is administered. Many state and local technology decision-makers say health and human services is an especially problematic area. They blame inflexible federal rules that make it hard to use federal funds on shared systems. The Barack Obama administration has taken action to streamline cumbersome funding mechanisms and to encourage innovative approaches.

But frustrations about HHS procurement appear to be persistent, according to a new survey of the GovTech Exchange, an online community of senior-level IT professionals from state and local government. Of 104 survey respondents, 65 percent said they either “strongly” or “somewhat” agreed that procurement was more hindrance than help in HHS. Clearly there is appetite for HHS modernization, though, as 71 percent said they were exploring new HHS systems or processes. See the two charts below for the full survey data.