The future of a multi-year technology modernization program aimed at helping the government assess the effectiveness of billions of dollars spent on community health centers is now uncertain due to recent layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services. The layoffs affected dozens of employees at the Health Resources and Services Administration who were working on the technology upgrade, which was set to launch next month. As many as 1,200 of the roughly 1,400 health centers were scheduled to go live with the upgrade on May 31, a milestone that now appears unlikely to be met given the loss of critical federal staff.
“People are ready to do this and they’re ready to do it right now, so not doing it seems like a big waste of investment,” said Julia Skapik, a primary care physician at Neighborhood Health of Virginia and former official at the National Association of Community Health Centers. Skapik had helped coordinate between the government, industry, and community health centers for the project.
The technology upgrade has been years in the making and is designed to help the government understand whether its substantial investment in community health centers is actually improving Americans’ health. The layoffs have cast doubt on the project’s continuation, leaving the fate of this significant investment uncertain.
