As I said this is going to be a meeting of the digital illiterates, both sides. 
Seriously though this was a crying shame…I was very vocal in 2009 saying HHS is all about Health IT get someone in there who can focus on this when she was nominated…
Healthcare.Gov–HHS Sebelius Testimony With House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Technologists Pull Up a Chair And Get the Popcorn Ready for “One Heck of a Show”- We Are Going To Learn About The Sorry State of Affairs Of Digital Literacy With Our Government All The Way Around…
This is Part two below of the 3 Part video series.
With IT costs of the exchanges, the government is sharing the love that hospitals are experiencing today as well. I did also tell my readers to be prepared to use the old style methods in September as well as when we heard “Speed up Health IT” those were the words of a very tech novice Sebelius and that told me we are in trouble and plus just being in tech and knowing about the complexities today you know they got a very late start at all of this. Again I thought using the word “beta” would have bought some sympathy here as well.
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Here’s a paragraph clip of what I told my readers on September 11th.
Health Insurance Exchange Contractors Give Update Report to House Energy & Commerce Committee–The Federal Data Hub Beta
“As I said before so what if all the automation is not ready, the fact is you will be able to apply for health insurance on that day, whether it is the old paper and faxing methods or if the big Beta Federal Data Hub is up to the task. This is a lot of data work and there will be updates and the states can more than likely look forward to updates to their systems for connectivity as the Hub and the rest of it will be updated. Come on who makes a perfect data system out there today..nobody. Just this week speaking of code issues, United had another recall on one of their medical systems. It was the sixth one but this was the first we heard about it. They wrote a fix and distributed the update so the exchange system can join the crowd in that respect:)”
Now we have the tech surge…I do have to say it sounds like running to the Alamo…this one is funny as he’s “stuck in the code”…..and PacMan comes running through to get him…
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I have couple questions of my own and the big one is why did the government build a integrated ID and Access system as well as a full on exchange when there were two off the shelf models from Oracle and Microsoft that could have done the trick with some scripting and code adjustment, beats the heck out of writing it from the bottom up and there’s a ton of Oracle technologies in the system so why not? You know time was of the essence…and as I understand the government did buy the Oracle Access and ID component from Oracle so why not an integrated turkey exchange platform to go with it as technologies were written to integrate!
Oracle turnkey State Exchange Software platform…
Microsoft turnkey State Exchange Software platform…
Microsoft’s HIX offering also gives states access to the extensive Microsoft partner network for solid expertise in crucial areas such as systems integration, Medicaid Management Information Systems and Medicaid Information Technology Architecture requirements. Microsoft integrates with Oracle and has for years, like since Windows 95 with open data base driver connectivity and it’s better and beyond that today.
Did I miss anything here? I am really am curious as to why CGI and QSSI were writing a platform as I understand it from the ground up when there was already a lot of coding work done. Granted I understand as being a former coder myself you have to script and modify some code to integrate but damn buying some code sure beats building form the ground up and when I wrote software, I bought a few VB 6 modules to use in my software, I’m not a fool and in thinking I needed to re-invent the wheel by all means. I would use those modules and adapt and change my models to work with it in Microsoft Visual Studio.
There’s nothing wrong at all with this thought process as software folks all do it and pay for it if it has the value to do what we need to have done, so again my questions here are what the heck went on with writing it from scratch? If I have missed something in all of this, let me know. BD
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-21-2013/the-weakest-link
The HIX contractors were writing new (but defective) code because they got hundred of million dollars for doing so. They wouldn't be able to charge nearly that amount if they started with pre-built Oracle or Microsoft infrastructure. This is "not invented here" carried to the extreme of "not invented anywhere."
ReplyDeleteThe incompetent procurement officials are the ones who should be fired (or preferably jailed for fraud.)