Obama`s IT Reality: Will It Be Change, or Just Hope? - IT Management

As is true for any organization, making good things happen with technology in government is primarily a management challenge, not a technological one. Technology investment must flow from a clearly articulated strategy, and technology must be deployed by and into organizational structures that are designed to make holistic decisions about it and to take full advantage of it.

This is the heavy lifting. Drawing up wish-lists is the easy part. Obama emphasizes open government and education, but there is no shortage of national needs that technology can address:

• The U.S. population grew nearly 20 percent between 1982 and 2001, but traffic increased 236 percent. Roadside sensors, radio frequency tags and global positioning systems can fit in where there is no room for more roads. A smart system in Stockholm has resulted in 22 percent less traffic and a 40-percent drop in emissions. London, Brisbane and Singapore are taking advantage of this technology.

• Intelligent oilfield technology can increase both pump performance and well productivity in a business where only 20 to 30 percent of the reservoir is actually extracted and produced into some form of energy. Meantime, we lose between 40 and 70 percent of our electrical energy due to “dumb” electric grids.

• Electronic health records and networking could eventually save $81 billion annually, by one estimate. Computerized Physician Order Entry—one component of EHR—increases patient safety by listing instructions for physicians to follow when they prescribe drugs to patients. It’s thought that CPOE could eliminate 200,000 adverse drug events and save about $1 billion per year if installed in all hospitals.

The Government Accountability Office has its own list of urgent technology priorities for the new administration:

• Preparing for and carrying out the 2010 Census• Crucial large-scale modernization efforts at the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration and the Internal Revenue Service
• Establishing information-sharing mechanisms to improve homeland security

• Protecting the federal government’s information systems and the nation’s critical infrastructures

Obama`s IT Reality: Will It Be Change, or Just Hope? - IT Management