Program Management

Authorizing Legislation: Section 301 of the Public Health Service Act.

Program Description and Accomplishments
HRSA’s Program Management activity improves the Agency’s capability to operate complex programs funded in FY 2009 at more than $5 billion. HRSA’s mission is to provide the National leadership, resources and services necessary to improve and expand access to quality health care for all Americans. To achieve its mission, HRSA requires sufficient qualified staff and professional resources to operate at maximum efficiency. The Program Management activity is the primary means of support for these resources.

Program Management personnel plan, coordinate, and direct technical assistance and program guidance to clients of all of HRSA’s key programs, including:

• Health Centers and other Primary Care programs;
• Nursing programs;
• Maternal and Child Health programs;
• Ryan White AIDS programs
• Healthcare Systems programs;
• Rural Health programs; and
• Telehealth

In addition, Program Management supports agency oversight of a broad variety of program operations funded from other sources, which include:

• National Practitioner Data Bank;
• Health Education Assistance Loan Program; and
• Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.

Significant progress has been made in a range of Program Management activities. The effort to improve the Information Technology infrastructure has involved major efforts at perimeter protection, risk assessment and security awareness training, the costs of which have expanded substantially. The Agency has moved forward with its plans for strategic management of human capital. Substantial progress has been made in terms of de-layering and streamlining. Grants management activities have been standardized and consolidated across the Agency through the Office of Federal Assistance Management. This office plans, awards, and manages HRSA’s portfolio of grants and cooperative agreements. It provides leadership, direction and coordination to all phases of grants policy, administration and independent review with oversight for all HRSA activities to ensure that resources are properly used and protected.

HRSA has also continued to carry out the HRSA Scholars program, bringing on more than 300 Scholars over the life of the seven-year plan to attract a new generation of committed health program professionals. These indicators of Program Management performance, as well as the performance carried out under the specific program components reported earlier, support the FY 2009 estimate.

Funding includes costs associated with grant reviews, processing of grants through the Grants Administration Tracking and Evaluation System (GATES) and HRSA’s electronic handbook, and follow-up performance reviews.

Funding History

Budget Request
The FY 2009 Request of $141,087,000 is equal to the FY 2008 Enacted Budget. This request supports pay-related costs, GSA rent, and includes continued funding of the UFMS and J-1 Visa Waiver Unit. The HRSA request includes funding to support the President’s Management Agenda, e-Gov initiatives and Departmental enterprise information technology initiatives identified through the HHS strategic planning process.

UFMS has now been fully deployed. The Program Support Center, through the Service and Supply Fund, manages the ongoing Operations and Maintenance (O & M) activities for UFMS. The scope of O & M services includes post deployment support and ongoing business and technical operations services, as well as an upgrade of Oracle software from version 11.5.9 to version 12.0. HRSA will use $5,469,597 for these O&M costs in FY 2009.

With the implementation of a modern accounting system, HHS has efforts underway to consolidate and implement automated administrative systems that share information electronically with UFMS. These systems will improve the business process flow within the Department, improve Funds Control and provide a state of the art integrated Financial Management System encompassing Finance, Budget, Acquisition, Travel and Property. The integration of administrative systems is the next step in making these processes more efficient and effective.

The HHS Consolidated Acquisition System (HCAS) initiative is a Department-wide contract management system that will integrate with the Unified Financial Management System (UFMS). The applications within the HCAS are Compusearch PRISM and a portion of the Oracle Compusearch Interface (OCI). PRISM is a federal contract management system that streamlines the procurement process. PRISM automates contract writing, simplified acquisitions, electronic approvals and routing, pre-award tracking, contract monitoring, post award tracking, contract closeout and reporting. HRSA will use $211,698 to support the completion of HCAS implementation in FY 2009.

See Table