Zac Jiwa left his job as CTO of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, transplanted to Washington D.C., and signed on to become an HHSentreprenuer.
As HHS CTO Bryan Sivak explained earlier this week, the HHSentrepreneurs are given 12 months, tops, “and because they’re coming in to solve some really interesting and somewhat difficult problems, and they have such a limited timeframe, they almost by definition have to do things in a different way.”
Government Health IT Editor Tom Sullivan spoke with Jiwa about his experience, the ostensibly daunting proposition of quitting a full-time job for a temporary one in this turbulent economy, as well as the technology and culture challenges of working with in the federal government.
Q: A little more than halfway through the program, has it been worth it?
A: For me it was definitely worth it. I was kind of experiencing some of the similar challenges leaving the private sector to work for state government for a couple years. I had the leadership support behind me to do what needed to be done for the state and then given the opportunity to come and do the same thing at the federal level, I guess the biggest concern I had was, knowing what kind of support I had in the state, would I have that same support level in the federal government to get done what we needed to do?
With the compressed 12-month timeline, you really have to give it all you’ve got and have enough leadership behind you to pave some of the path. And the experience that I’m having in terms of that, with Bryan and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius getting involved at times, and all the way vertically up and down the chain of command, has just been phenomenal. So I wouldn't change a thing. I’m just really excited that we are hopefully helping to change the way that government does projects and gets things done. All the touch points in our project, I get something new everyday, in fact, recently I did my mid-year review, something that the federal government does, and I hit the excel button on everything I’ve done and that’s cool on one side but on the other side I’m not really focused on my mid-year career discussion, I’m focused on ‘are we hitting the metrics of the project?’
Q: So what’s next? Do you have anything lined up or is it more a matter of getting through this year and then figuring the rest out?
A: I think by rules of the federal government I can’t have anything lined up. But there are interesting opportunities within the federal government and my personal desire is to go back to helping other private sector organizations.
Q: After working in the private sector, at Microsoft and elsewhere, then in public health at the state level, what are the hardest parts of working in the HHSentrepreneurs program and the federal government in general?
A: Antiquated technology is certainly one. I walked in and they handed me this nine-pound brick of a laptop. I took it home, put it in my desk drawer, and use my really thin and light laptop to work on. The collaboration tools are another. My fellow HHSentrepreneur and I use Skype outside of the federal network. When we try to communicate we just have crazy barriers to doing virtual presence type meetings inside and across organizations. Another thing we have to deal with is the collaboration outside of the federal government. In my particular project, we’re working with a number of states on implementing the requirements of the Affordable Care Act and using tools to collaborate on requirements is something that we’ve had to be creative about and pretty much go outside the government network.
And obviously the personalities inside government. There are career bureaucrats or employees that are used to the 20 years of the way they’ve been doing things. Part of it is that you come in and everybody knows that you're there for a year so we have this certain set of folks who just disregard you because they know if they wait you out long enough, you’ll be gone. And then there’s the other part of the organization that says ‘oh, wow, an opportunity to get something done’ and they just grab onto your coattails and you’re able to actually gain some momentum with folks that tag onto you. So it’s just been a really interesting experience.
See also:
CMS, ONC eye agile, lean tactics to improve Stage 3
Q&A: Part 2 with 3M's Richard Averill on the politics of ICD-10 timing
GAO: Fed IT projects need aligned management
