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You are here: Home / Government Contracting News / Healthcare.gov’s shortcomings spark criticism of IT prowess and acquisition process

October 24, 2013 By AMK

Healthcare.gov’s shortcomings spark criticism of IT prowess and acquisition process

Problems with healthcare.gov, the federal website for residents of 36 states  whose governments declined to build their own healthcare exchanges, have set off  a round of recriminations against federal information technology management and  acquisition.

The New York Times, in a Oct. 12 article,  says that regulations underpinning healthcare.gov were delayed for political  reasons until after the November 2012 election and technical specifications were  also slow in coming, meaning that the website’s largest contractor, CGI Federal,  didn’t start writing code until this spring. The Centers for Medicare and  Medicaid Services also took on itself the role of system integrator, although  some doubted it had the technical capacity to take on that task.

Systemic problems, such as lack of technical expertise, are the stuff of much  debate over what went wrong.

“Many agencies are stuck in a technology time warp that affects how projects  like the healthcare exchange portal are built,” writes Ars Technica’s Sean Gallagher, expressing a common opinion that cites  as fundamental causes long procurement cycles, slow adoption of new technologies  and the problem of a large installed base. Gallagher also notes turnover among  top executives, each of whom brings “some marquee project to burnish their  résumés,” meaning that real change is difficult to implement.

Keep reading this article at: http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/healthcaregov-problems-spark-federal-it-recriminations/2013-10-16

Filed Under: Government Contracting News Tagged With: acquisition strategy, health services, healthcare exchanges, HHS, IT, technology development

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