February 2010

President Barack Obama's plan to overhaul health care, which he outlined Feb 22, would create several new federal databases and information technology systems to identify and punish violations and frauds.

For example, the plan would establish a new "Comprehensive Sanctions" Medicare and Medicaid database that would be overseen by the Health and Human Services Department's (HHS) inspector general. The database would detail penalties levied against doctors, hospitals and suppliers and would be available to law enforcement agencies. It also would establish real-time analysis of claims and payments data for Medicare and Medicaid to identify apparently fraudulent claims in public health programs. "The President's Proposal speeds access to claims data to identify potentially fraudulent payments more quickly. It establishes a system for using technology to provide real-time data analysis of claim and payments under public programs to identify and stop waste, fraud and abuse," the proposal states.

The anti-fraud provisions also include plans to set up a system to match data from Medicaid and Medicare claims against Internal Revenue Service filings to identify whether a doctor collecting payments has a "seriously delinquent" tax debt.

A Health and Human Services Department advisory panel has stepped up its efforts to identify standards and services that would open up the nationwide health information network to providers who need simple ways to share health data.

Providers as well as states need advice on how to set up health information exchange systems as soon as possible, said Dr. David Blumenthal, the national health IT coordinator. His office recently announced financial awards to state organizations to develop health information exchange systems. "I don't have to tell you about the pressure that organizations and providers in the field are under to exchange information," he said at a meeting of the Health IT Policy Committee Feb. 17. "States and state organizations are hungry for guidance on how they should use the funds that are becoming available for planning to expedite health information exchange."

Techies now run much of government. And they're not the programmers in the IT shop.

President Obama's political appointees understand that the smart management of technology, not simply the tools themselves, can be a primary driver to improve how government operates--and even influence policy. Many inside and outside government say the Obama administration gets it, understanding that technology should be part of policy discussions because it powers innovation and performance, much like it does for businesses. While the first Internet president has contributed to this high-tech management strategy, other factors might be as integral to what has amounted to a tectonic mental shift in how the government operates, say former federal executives and corporate contractors. Budget cuts are forcing agencies to get creative, and a new generation of wired (and wireless) workers is pushing even unwilling Luddites to learn how to blog and Tweet. In addition, the Obama team tacitly recognizes that the Bush administration laid the groundwork for all this with its President's Management Agenda -- reforms that rated agencies on expanding electronic government, among other things. But Obama has given technology an even higher profile, pressuring agencies to be innovative and employ online tools to boost performance. Unlike past presidents, who rarely mentioned the word technology and frequently appointed nontechnologists to some of the most prominent CIO posts, Obama has placed in top-level executive positions people who have a management philosophy that is interwoven with technology.

Intel, the world's largest chipmaker, and a group of 24 venture-capital companies will invest $3.5 billion in US technology companies over the next two years to spur domestic job growth.

The effort includes a new $200 million technology fund by Intel Capital, the company's investment arm, Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini said in a speech at the Brookings Institution in Washington. The investments will be focused on information technology, biotechnology and so-called clean technology. Intel takes stakes in companies that have technology that can be used to increase future processor sales. Intel's microprocessors run about 80 percent of the world's personal computers. Otellini also said Intel is part of a group of companies that agreed to increase hiring of U.S. college graduates, creating as many as 10,500 jobs in 2010.