HHS expects ATO for the blockchain acquisition solution this month – FCW

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Blockchain

HHS expects ATO for the blockchain acquisition solution this month

federal blockchain

The Department of Health and Human Services is making a big push to have the first blockchain-based program in the federal government with the authority to operate the certification.

Jose Arrieta, assistant secretary assistant associate for the HHS acquisition division, said he expects to get the ATO "within the next week" for HHS Accelerate, the program that uses blockchain, machine learning and artificial intelligence to simplify the Acquisition by providing detailed, real-time information on prices and terms and conditions of across HHS for 10 categories of purchases.

As part of the work to get the ATO, Arrieta and her team had to conduct a series of tests on the HHS Accelerate system in which the problems were identified and resolved and a report sent to the information security officer of the ;agency. Speaking at a December 4 event hosted by FCW, Arrieta said his team is about to get information and get approval from the HHS information security officer.

"We are using our machine learning system to connect five contract systems," said Arrieta. "Machine learning algorithms are cleaning data from the data layer" before they are inserted into the blockchain.

The HHS team has built a "concept demonstration using artificial intelligence for cost logic and module selectors" that addresses the challenges that contract professionals face, he said.

The entire effort was conducted through two-week sprints that allowed developers to show results and get feedback from stakeholders. Arrieta said that the initial investment return is estimated at 800%.

"I am investing in a range of skills to drive corporate production, but I have invested completely in the return on investment, so if the project is killed tomorrow, it will generate a return on investment where it will easily pay for itself" said Arrieta. "At the lowest level, I have a tool that allows you to deepen prices, terms and conditions and help you negotiate better prices."

The HHS team is also examining ways to perform continuous diagnostic and mitigation as a microservice within HHS Accelerate.

"We are looking for ways to improve our system's security posture," Arrieta said. "We believe that blockchain creates a unique opportunity for us to take the principles of the CDM and execute it in a more appropriate way."

Arrieta also said she was interested in adding more robotic process automation to HHS Accelerate once the ATO was approved. "We believe that the return on RPA through the shared data layer on HHS is enormous compared to putting the RPA on existing systems," he said.

However, Arrieta said that if other agencies decided to implement the techniques developed by their team without the appropriate taxonomy of acquisition data, they could face challenges. His team is not interested in developing HHS Accelerate as a shared service, but is interested in collaborating with other agencies to make the transition as smooth as possible using the same taxonomy.

On December 12, HHS will hold a demonstration of HHS Acceleration to get feedback from the industry on the project. Stakeholders should respond to

a published announcement
on FedBizOpps.

About the author

Sara Friedman is a journalist / producer of GCN, covering the cloud, computer security and a wide range of other public sector IT topics.

Prior to joining GCN, Friedman was a reporter for Gambling Compliance, covering state issues related to casinos, lotteries and fantastic sports. He also wrote for Communications Daily and Washington Internet Daily on state telecommunications and cloud computing. Friedman is a graduate of Ithaca College, where he studied journalism, politics and international communications.

Friedman can be contacted at [email protected] or follow it on Twitter @SaraEFriedman.

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