HHS Releases New Strategic Plan, FY 2022-2026

The plan contains five overarching strategic goals:

• Protect and Strengthen Equitable Access to High Quality and Affordable Healthcare
• Safeguard and Improve National and Global Health Conditions and Outcomes
• Strengthen Social Well-Being, Equity, and Economic Resilience
• Restore Trust and Accelerate Advancements in Science and Research for All
• Advance Strategic Management to Build Trust, Transparency, and Accountability

The plan also contains cross-cutting principles to guide the execution of plan goals and objectives:

• Equity and Inclusion
• Restore Trust
• Health Literacy and Plain Language Information Sharing
• Stakeholder and Partner Engagement
• Agility, Learning, and Innovation

Additionally, several strategic objectives support each of the strategic goals:

Strategic Goal #1: Protect and Strengthen Equitable Access to High Quality and Affordable Healthcare – Objectives

• Increase choice, affordability, and enrollment in high-quality healthcare coverage
• Reduce costs, improve the quality of healthcare services, and ensure access to safe medical devices and drugs
• Expand equitable access to comprehensive, community-based, innovative, and culturally competent healthcare services while addressing social determinants of health
• Drive the integration of behavioral health into the healthcare system to strengthen and expand access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment and recovery services for individuals and families
• Bolster the health workforce to ensure the delivery of quality services and care

Strategic Goal #2: Safeguard and Improve National and Global Health Conditions and Outcomes – Objectives

• Improve capabilities to predict, prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters, public health and medical emergencies, and threats across the nation and globe
• Protect individuals, families, and communities from infectious diseases and non-communicable diseases through equitable access to effective, innovative, readily available diagnostics, treatments, therapeutics, medical devices, and vaccines
• Enhance the promotion of healthy behaviors to reduce the occurrence of and disparities in preventable injury, illness, and death
• Mitigate the impacts of environmental factors, including climate change, on health outcomes

Strategic Goal #3: Strengthen Social Well-Being, Equity, and Economic Resilience – Objectives

• Provide effective and innovative pathways leading to equitable economic success for all individuals and families
• Strengthen early childhood development and expand opportunities to help children and youth thrive equitably within their families and communities
• Expand access to high-quality services and resources for older adults and people with disabilities, and their caregivers to support increased independence and quality of life
• Increase safeguards to empower families and communities to prevent and respond to neglect, abuse, and violence, while supporting those who have experienced trauma or violence

Strategic Goal #4: Restore Trust and Accelerate Advancements in Science and Research for All – Objectives

• Improve the design, delivery, and outcomes of HHS programs by prioritizing science, evidence, and inclusion
• Invest in the research enterprise and the scientific workforce to maintain leadership in the development of innovations that broaden our understanding of disease, healthcare, public health, and human services resulting in more effective interventions, treatments, and programs
• Strengthen surveillance, epidemiology, and laboratory capacity to understand and equitably address diseases and conditions
• Improve data collection, use, and evaluation, to increase evidence-based knowledge that leads to better health outcomes, reduced health disparities, and improved social well-being, equity, and economic resilience

Strategic Goal #5: Advance Strategic Management to Build Trust, Transparency, and Accountability – Objectives

• Promote effective enterprise governance to ensure programmatic goals are met equitably and transparently across all management practices
• Sustain strong financial stewardship of HHS resources to foster prudent use of resources, accountability, and public trust
• Uphold effective and innovative human capital resource management resulting in an engaged, diverse workforce with the skills and competencies to accomplish the HHS mission
• Ensure the security and climate resiliency of HHS facilities, technology, data, and information, while advancing environment-friendly practices

Specific objectives containing related IT components include improving data collection and use, under the goal of accelerating science and research, and promoting effective enterprise governance, under the goal of advancing strategic management.

In an effort to improve data collection and use, along with advancing evidence-based decision-making, HHS is in the process of establishing a department-wide approach to data collection. HHS is also working to close data gaps, transform data, and share data across the department. HHS is also promoting collaboration as a way to expand data access and sharing with the intent of using data to increase knowledge of health, public health, and human service outcomes. 

Under the goal of advancing strategic management through the objective of promoting effective enterprise governance, HHS outlines three sub-elements with heavy IT reliance: improving service delivery and the customer experience; employing human-centered design; and performance management using data-driven decision-making.

The HHS strategy document states, “Federal agencies have a responsibility to manage customer experience and improve service delivery using leading practices and a human-centered approach.” HHS goes on to say that, these factors can drive the overall satisfaction, confidence, and trust of a program, agency, and the government at large. 

In the area of performance management, HHS’ strategy says that managers need to ensure staff has the time and skills “to examine and interpret the data and the appropriate technology to gather and access the data.” 

Contractors should work to align their solutions with HHS goals and objectives. Opportunities may exist for IT contractors to assist HHS in achieving strategic goals and objectives in the areas of data collection, curation, harmonization, storage, and analytics. HHS staff may also need education and training related to data analytics tools and solutions in order to exploit their capabilities for decision making and performance management. Additionally, HHS agencies and bureaus will likely need contractor support for improving the customer experience and implementing human-centered design principles.