The Food and Drug Administration plans to hire a data officer as part of its 2016 strategy to improve its internal IT systems. 

The agency will connect its testing laboratories and field offices to allow inspectors and researchers to communicate freely and make use of agency data, Todd Simpson, CIO of the FDA, said in a Bloomberg report.

Simpson said the organization has been wrestling with disjointed IT networks that don't efficiently communicate with one another, which complicates the processes of analyzing data for insights.

The agency also plans to hire a chief data officer to oversee changes to how the agency uses the information it collects in testing food, drugs and medical devices, Simpson said.

Hiring a data officer would ensure someone oversees the changes to the administration's IT infrastructure, enabling its data to be put to better use, Simpson told Bloomberg.

“We're a big data shop and data governance is obviously very important to us,” he said. “We believe it's key.”