Networking News

GAO: HHS Fails to Implement High-Priority Health IT Recommendations

The Department of Health and Human Services has not implemented four high-priority health IT recommendations by the Government Accountability Office.

HHS

Source: HHS

By Fred Donovan

- The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has not implemented four high-priority health IT recommendations by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), according to a recent report by the government watchdog.

The four recommendations focus on improving healthcare data security at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), strengthening critical infrastructure protection, beefing up the public health alert network infrastructure, and improving performance measures for electronic health record (EHR) implementation.

In March 2018, the GAO recommended that the CMS administrator develop procedures to ensure that qualified entities and researchers implement robust IT security controls. CMS has hired a contractor to review its data security framework and make recommendations on how to improve IT security controls and implementation requirements that would be appropriate for those entities.