GAO: Duplicative HHS systems could be wasting $321M
After reviewing 590 federal IT investments, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified 12 potentially duplicative investments at three key federal agencies which account for about $321 million in IT spending from 2008 through 2013.
The duplicative systems include six potentially duplicative investments at the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), which include four investments that support enterprise information security and two for Medicare coverage determination, according to the GAO’s report.
HHS officials disagreed that its information security investments were duplicative but nonetheless plan to review them by the end of the month to identify opportunities for consolidation. Regarding the Medicare coverage determination investments, HHS officials noted that they have consolidated several functions but could not provide documented justification for why the other functions were not consolidated.
GAO recommends that HHS conduct analyses to address the potentially duplicative investments identified.
Read the entire report.
Editor
Editor Beth earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and master’s in health communication. She has worked in hospital, academic and publishing settings over the past 20 years. Beth joined TriMed in 2005, as editor of CMIO and Clinical Innovation + Technology. When not covering all things related to health IT, she spends time with her husband and three children.