Michael J. Keegan

Since its inception the US Department of Homeland Security, DHS, has undertaken numerous reviews and reorganizations in an ongoing effort to increase the department's efficiency and effectiveness in managing its wide ranging complex mission set. In April of 2014, Secretary of Homeland Security Jed Johnson directed DHS leadership to make several key changes to "transparently incorporate" DHS components into unified decision making process and the analytic efforts that inform decision making.

Doubt haunts federal employees following OPM data breaches, survey shows. Federal employees and other security-clearance holders do not trust the Office of Personnel Management to protect victims of the hacks on its databases, an exclusive Federal News Radio survey shows. Yet they’ll accept the agency’s credit- and identity-protection services. Moreover, they’ll continue to give OPM their sensitive personal information if it means they’ll keep their security clearances. VA’s impending shutdown to impact nearly all of its hospitals.

Hope for the DATA Act. Hudson Hollister, the head of the Data Transparency Coalition, was interviewed by Federal News Radio on his take of the status of the implementation of the DATA Act, which requires regular reporting of financial transactions by each federal agency on at least a quarterly basis. He shared his frustration, but also some hope. Later that day, GAO testified on the Act’s implementation and noted progress, but more needs to be done.

Report Slams VA Over Health Care Enrollment System Backlog. A Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General report finds that the Veterans Health Administration's enrollment system in 2014 had about 867,000 pending records, 35% of which were for deceased veterans. OIG says VHA's Health Eligibility Center is not successfully managing data, causing a significant backlog and limiting access to care. Modern Healthcare et al Cyber drawbridges, medical device data and more.

HIMSS Releases Top Health IT Policy Priorities for Congress. The Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society has published its annual "congressional asks," naming interoperability, cybersecurity and telehealth as the top policy priorities that lawmakers should address in the next year. Healthcare IT News, Politico's "Morning eHealth." ONC: Rate of EHR Replacements Among Providers Up Significantly. New data show that the percentage of eligible professionals and hospitals that switched electronic health record vendors quadrupled between meaningful use program years 2013 and 2014.

In the mist of tightening budgets, many government agencies are being asked to deliver innovative solutions to operational and strategic problems. One way to address this dilemma is to participate in open innovation. Two Aspects of Open Innovation A recent IBM Center report, Making Open Innovation Ecosystems Work: Case Studies in Healthcare, by Donald Wynn, Jr., Renée M. E. Pratt, Randy V.

CIOs: 'A strategic partner, not a coder-in-chief'. Agency heads, acquisition officers and even CIOs don't need to be hard-core techies. FCW's four-part look at the expertise that's really required to make federal IT run. CIOs urged to flex their financial muscle. A retired general tells federal CIOs they need to stop wasteful spending before it gets started, and says they could have a powerful ally in their agency CFO. GAO Report Cites Deficiencies in VA's Benefits Management System.

The IBM Center has explored these questions and more. With the potential of a government shutdown on the horizon, Dr. Philip Joyce, a budget expert at the University of Maryland, examines the impact of late budgets on the efficiency and effectiveness of government operations over the past 37 years and identifies useful coping strategies and offers recommendations on how to soften the adverse effects of budget uncertainty.

There are approximately 75 days between a presidential election and the inauguration of a new president. This is considered the presidential transition period. It is a time of opportunity and hazard for an incoming administration. The transition from campaign to governing requires that presidential policies be transformed from rhetoric into an actionable agenda and then into concrete results. Neither good policies nor sound investments are likely to work, let along succeed, if undermined by poor implementation.

These are important and age-old questions.