The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) awarded contract worth nearly $250,000 to help it gain more visibility into its data, according to an Aug. 24 award on FedBizOpps.
The award went to SB International, a northern Virginia technology and management consulting company, for a metadata management and data governance software solution that CMS wants to pilot. The pilot will be implemented between now and July 31, 2020, according to a July 16 statement of work. CMS plans to buy commercial off-the-shelf software, which SB International will be responsible with installing and configuring.
Ultimately, CMS wants an enterprise-view of what data it collects, where it lives and who has access to it.
Currently at CMS there is a “lack of awareness among the analytics users, business owners and system maintainers about the various data assets available to users or guidelines on how to use them," as well as a lot of data duplication, according to the statement of work.
The software solution allow for “enhanced data insights and business value, alignment of data requirements with organizational strategic goals, improvement and simplification of the current as-is data landscape, improved data sharing capabilities, rationalization of reporting requirements across DASG information systems and the promotion of stakeholder and data stewardship engagement,” CMS wrote.
The government is currently trying to overhaul how it uses its data and how it is governed. The Office of Management and Budget released the federal data strategy in early June, a document that lays out a plan for how government agencies should use their data to be more efficient. Many agencies do not have a full picture of what data it collects and where it is stored. Government agencies are also expanding their use of automated processes to increase efficiencies. The CMS award is a step forward for Medicare in its data management and governance journey.
“These issues can be addressed with ... technology to enable the data quality required by the business, which encompasses data cataloging, mapping, versioning, business rules and glossaries maintenance and metadata management,” CMS wrote in the statement of work.
CMS wrote that it requires “real-time” pictures into its entire data landscape, from data in databases to data as its integrated into other applications.
As part of the award, SB International will be required to provide training to CMS employees who will be managing the system.
Andrew Eversden covers all things defense technology for C4ISRNET. He previously reported on federal IT and cybersecurity for Federal Times and Fifth Domain, and worked as a congressional reporting fellow for the Texas Tribune. He was also a Washington intern for the Durango Herald. Andrew is a graduate of American University.
