Federal News Countdown: Move to the cloud, DHS progress

Amtower Off Center host Mark Amtower and In Depth host Francis Rose countdown the top federal news stories of the week.

Audio coming.

Today’s Federal News Countdown guests are:
Mark Amtower, host, Amtower Off Center
Francis Rose, host, In Depth

Mark Amtower’s stories
#3 CSC buys HHS health care data management firm
From Washington Technology:

Computer Sciences Corp. has acquired Maricom Systems Inc. Financial terms of the deal were not reported.

The Baltimore company provides business intelligence and data management solutions that support mission-critical health IT systems within the Health and Human Services Department.

#2 How Sept. 11 changed government contracting forever
From Washington Technology:

When terrorists hijacked four planes to use them as weapons and killed thousands of innocent people in the process, a chain reaction started that quickly swept across the country.

Today we live with many of those changes, from heightened security checkpoints at airports to more requirements to get a driver’s license.

#1 Tight Budget? Look to the ‘Cloud’ by Vivek Kundra
From New York Times:

AS the global economy struggles through a slow and painful recovery, governments around the world are wasting billions of dollars on unnecessary information technology. This problem has worsened in recent years because of what I call the “I.T. cartel.” This powerful group of private contractors encourages reliance on inefficient software and hardware that is expensive to acquire and to maintain.

Francis Rose’s stories
#3 Postal Service warns Senate of dire finances
From Federal News Radio:

Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe warned that the Postal Service is on “the brink of default,” as he battles to keep his agency solvent.

Without legislation by Sept. 30, the agency “will default on a mandated $5.5 billion payment to the Treasury,” Donahoe told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

#2 VA opening up its e-health record
From Federal News Radio

The Department of Veterans Affairs has taken a major step toward opening its electronic health record system to open source development.

The Web portal, where collaborative development on the electronic health record system will take place officially launched last week, and developers who are interested in contributing to the project can start signing up.

#1 Eight years later, GAO finds DHS halfway there
From Federal News Radio:

The Homeland Security Department has made big strides since it was created eight years ago, but still has some big management hurdles to overcome, according to an assessment released by the Government Accountability Office to mark the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

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