The FDA does not have a comprehensive IT strategic plan to coordinate and manage its current modernization projects, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.
Currently the FDA is pursuing numerous modernization projects (including 16 enterprisewide initiatives), many of which are in early stages.
The GAO report says an IT plan that includes results-oriented goals and performance measures, is vital for guiding and coordinating the FDA’s projects, but until it develops such a plan, the risk that it may not meet the agency’s needs remains.
The GAO recommends that FDA Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg, MD, should require Chief Information Officer Lori Davis to take expeditious actions to set milestones and a completion date for developing a comprehensive IT strategic plan, including results-oriented goals, strategies, milestones, performance measures, and an analysis of interdependencies among projects and activities, and use this plan to guide and coordinate its modernization projects and activities.
According to the GAO, the FDA has agreed with its recommendations and identified actions initiated or planned to address.
In other news, on Tuesday the FDA formed a task force to develop recommendations for enhancing the transparency of its operations and decision making to the public.
Executive departments and agencies have been charged with harnessing new technologies to disclose information about operations and decisions online and to make this information readily available to the public. A meeting will be held on June 24 to solicit recommendations from the public.
"Our administration is committed to making government open and transparent," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. "The Transparency Task Force will give the American people a seat at the table and make the FDA more open and accountable."
The task force among other things will seek to identify appropriate tools and new technologies for informing the public.
"President Obama has pledged to strengthen our democracy by creating an unprecedented level of openness and public participation in government, and the FDA looks forward to participating in this process," said Hamburg. “I have asked the Transparency Task Force to deliver recommendations to me for ways to make more information available and foster better understanding of decision-making.”
