8: Management Excellence

Achieve excellence in management practices

Other Information:

In order to accomplish all the other goals and objectives in HHS’ Strategic Plan, it will be necessary to improve management practices to achieve excellence in HHS management. A central objective in achieving excellence is to function as One HHS. To ensure that HHS is “One Department” rather than a collection of disparate and unrelated agencies, we are reforming the management of the Department, in part by consolidating activities and by improving collaboration among agencies in administering HHS programs, and in part, by re-engineering business practices to improve efficiency and support a unified approach. HHS is pursuing objectives consistent with the five government-wide elements of the President’s Management Agenda (Competitive Sourcing, Human Capital Management, Improve Financial Management, Strengthen E-Government, and Budget and Performance Integration). These elements form the basis for objectives 8.2 through 8.6. Highlights of recent HHS efforts and accomplishments in these areas follow. The General Accounting Office estimates that more than 15 percent of the federal workforce will retire in the next five years, drastically hindering the government’s ability to serve the public. Given the growing proportion of HHS staff eligible to retire in the next few years, HHS will improve the management of human capital through workforce planning as well as training and recruitment efforts. We plan to enhance the effectiveness of the balance between work done by government employees and work conducted by private sector contractors. We are implementing an integrated Department-wide financial management system—the Unified Financial Management System (UFMS). This system will replace the five outdated legacy accounting systems currently in use across the HHS agencies. The system will serve as the “hub” of the Department’s financial systems infrastructure and will support business operations and decision-making at all management levels. The major source of health coverage for older Americans is Medicare. Ensuring the fiscal integrity of the program is critical to continued access to care. Significant accomplishments in reducing the financial drain from fraud, waste, and abuse have been recorded. Still, we can do more to reduce improper payments, which in fiscal year 2001 were estimated at -12.1 billion, or about 6.3 percent of the -191.8 billion in processed fee-for-service payments. We will also build on previous efforts to improve financial management by reducing payment error rates to providers and by pursuing modernization of Medicare contractors’ financial systems. We intend to reform regulations to reduce excessive paperwork and the burden on doctors, nurses, and other health care professionals so that they have more time to spend with patients. With growing use of technology, enhancing the use of electronic commerce in service delivery, communications, and record keeping will contribute greatly to improved management practices. HHS continuously strives to integrate performance information and budget information so that program results inform budget decisions, and all HHS agencies are collaborating on budget integration improvements. Taken together, these efforts will greatly enhance management and program performance at HHS.

Objective(s):

8.1: Unified Department

8.2: Human Capital

8.3: Competitive Sourcing

8.4: Financial Management

8.5: IT, Service Delivery, and Record Keeping

8.6: Budget and Performance Integration

8.7: Regulatory Burden

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