HHS has failed to produce and deliver to Congress a strategic plan for creating and evaluating an electronic information network to be used in the event of a catastrophic public health event, according to the Government Accountability Office.
In its 49-page report,
Public Health Information Technology: Additional Strategic Planning Needed to Guide HHS’s Efforts to Establish Electronic Situational Awareness Capabilities (PDF), the GAO notes that the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006 requires HHS to work with state, local and tribal public health officials to come up with a “strategic plan for the establishment and evaluation of an electronic nationwide public health situational awareness capability.”
And while various government offices have worked on developing public health reporting functionality for their own purposes, the GAO found that HHS “has not defined a comprehensive strategic plan that identifies goals, objectives, activities and priorities” and that incorporates related tactics to meet the law’s situational awareness requirements.
“HHS neither agreed nor disagreed with GAO’s recommendation, but stated that a complete strategy would be developed,” according to the GAO.
