Looking Forward at CDC
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently received support from Congress to better prepare for future pandemics. One of the mandates associated with the support is for CDC to modernize all systems. There are 3 concurrent CDC-wide modernization initiatives currently underway including migrating systems to the cloud, modernizing data systems (collection, integration, platform, and reporting), and modernizing digital communication (website). All of our teams are impacted by the initiatives in some way, but none as much as SeKON’s COVID-19 team. They are on the front lines of the Digital Modernization effort, serving as the pilot team for tools and processes that will later be rolled out CDC -wide. This initiative is just heating up with a goal to move to a new architecture in 18 months for the entire CDC.gov website. More on this story in future new letters.
Nothing says commitment like putting some money into an agency. Here’s a sample of the President’s 2024 Budget for CDC:
- $20B in mandatory funding for pandemic prevention and preparedness and biodefense priorities as outlined in the 2021 American Pandemic Preparedness: Transforming Our Capabilities plan and 2022 National Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Plan for Countering Biological Threats, Enhancing Pandemic Preparedness, and Achieving Global Health Security.
- $10.5B in discretionary funding to increase public health capacity at the CDC and at state and local levels. This includes expanding capacity for response, surveillance, laboratory studies, and public health workforce capacities. In addition, the budget supports efforts to modernize public health data systems.
- $50M for the Public Health Emergency Fund to ensure HHS is able to respond to emerging public health threats without delay.
- The budget also proposes key new HHS authorities to improve preparedness, incorporating lessons learned from recent public health emergencies.
