A recent dive by the Government Accountability Office into HHS and the federal government's annual IT spend found a general lack of discipline, effective management and executive-level oversight, leading to significant cost overruns and schedule delays.
Each year, the federal government invests more than $80 billion in IT projects, though often times the projects take longer than expected or are cancelled altogether, according to the GAO's testimony.
As of May 2015, 124 of the federal government's 738 investments were in need of management attention, and 54 held significant concerns, according to the GAO report. These investments requiring attention totaled $8.7 billion in investments.
The GAO outlined some key recommendations to help improve agencies' management of IT investments, such as ensuring CIOs have a significant role in programming, management and budgeting decisions, have the Office of Management and Budget assist agencies in managing IT portfolios and have the OMB issue guidance requiring the IO to reflect major IT investment's costs, schedule and performance.
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