Inside the HHS reorganization to prioritize AI and emerging tech

The Department of Health and Human Services announced in July that it was reorganizing its internal operations to place more of an emphasis on data and emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. 

As part of the restructuring, HHS’s Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology was renamed the Assistant Secretary for Technology Policy and Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology.

Micky Tripathi, who has been serving as the department’s acting chief artificial intelligence officer, was named as the head of the new joint office. HHS is currently in the process of looking to hire a permanent CAIO, chief technology officer and chief data officer, all of which will be overseen by Tripathi in his new role. 

Tripathi recently spoke with Nextgov/FCW about HHS’s effort to prioritize AI and other emerging capabilities and focus on AI moving forward. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Nextgov/FCW: Who do you report to in your organization? How many people are on your team? And what are your plans for growth?

Tripathi: With the expanded role, I guess I report to myself. That's because the CAIO will report to the chief technology officer, who reports to me. But I think there is a little bit of nuance there because the CTO, the chief AI officer and the chief data officer are supporting the department.

The ONC — our original organization before the expanded role — was roughly 180 people. And we're now looking at what an expansion of that will be to cover these new roles. Part of it is moving over components that were a part of the CIO’s office. There was a chief AI office there; it was relatively small, just a few people. And there was also a chief data office that was under 10 people. Now we’re also reestablishing the chief technology officers’ office, which used to exist. So we're consolidating all of that and building out what our hiring plans will be and how we built out the organization. 

So more to come on that. The department's very supportive of being able to invest resources in this to make sure that we’re able to do what we want to be able to do, which is to start thinking more strategically about technology and data.

Nextgov/FCW: How do you envision your new duties and responsibilities as the assistant secretary for technology policy and national coordinator for health information technology evolving over time?

Tripathi: It's really an extension of — and sort of the logical next step for — things that we'd already been doing in the department. We’ve been working with the secretary’s office to develop a vision and now we’re putting together the organization to achieve it. And the broader vision is really a representation that the department wants to make sure that we are thinking about technology and data from a strategic perspective, that it's important to our mission delivery in strategic ways — not IT as a cost.

This isn't about making sure we have computers to support the mission. You need to start thinking about ‘how is technology actually going to enable the mission and perhaps other missions in a more strategic manner?’ It’s not just an administrative cost. If we're going to be able to move to the next level of capability in AI, for example, we need to be thinking hard about how technology helps to enable those types of capabilities.

And, similarly from a data perspective, we better be thinking about data from a strategic perspective to say, “Well, what types of data and what are the rules of the road of getting that data, and what kinds of technologies do we need to be able to access that data?”

Nextgov/FCW: What is your role in things like AI acquisition and workforce development?

Tripathi: The first steps are doing this recruitment for the leadership. It's no small feat to get a reorganization done in a federal government agency, and then to be able to identify senior leadership positions, be able to get those postings out in the street and be able to do that in a pretty rapid manner.

There is a talent effort that is a part of what we're doing. Data and AI, data science — you've got a whole bunch of areas there to help support what we're doing at the HHS level, but also to make sure that we're thinking about how we can best support the operating divisions.

So we’re kind of putting together those strategies and we'll hopefully be able to have more to share on that. That's also a part of a governmentwide effort. If you look at the executive order, there's a whole talent strategy that's being developed out of the White House. So we're being responsive to that and want to make sure that we're aligned with that.

We obviously have to live with government acquisition rules. All the agencies at the government level are starting to look at AI acquisition policies. So there’s a lot of work going on, and some of that has to do with the idea of, ‘how do we in a world where you've got very dynamic technologies?’ And this includes looking at the ways that we can appropriately adjust our procurement mechanisms and our deployment mechanisms to be able to adapt to that reality, both in procurement as well as the lifecycle.

Nextgov/FCW: How do you see the role of chief AI officer evolving over time, particularly when a permanent official takes over this position?

Tripathi: We want this role to be very similar to the kinds of approaches that ONC has taken, which is to say that there is strong, close coordination.

We've got very high performing operating divisions — you think about NIH and FDA and CDC and CMS. So we've got a whole bunch of agencies who have a lot of resources and a lot of expertise. What we want to be able to do is work with them to say, “How do we make sure that, from a departmental perspective, we are identifying the strategic goals of the department itself as a whole?”

What we want to be able to do is identify where there might be gaps and also identify where there might be overlaps, and then find the opportunities for synergies. So if agency A and agency B are looking like they're headed toward the same thing, we ought to be able to bring them together and say, “How are we going to do that most effectively in a cross agency manner?”

Often agencies find that they confront obstacles that they themselves can't resolve, so we want to be able to identify those as well, whether from a policy perspective or the need for more resources. 

The last point is about the consistency that we want to establish across all of the operating divisions. It’s very important that they have the ability to innovate and do what they're going to do. Most of the real horsepower comes from here, and we want to make sure that we are directing and harnessing that power appropriately. So we want to have consistency in the basic assumptions and basic principles about the uses of AI and how we think about that. 

We want to provide some overall guidance that doesn't stifle the operating divisions but also sets up some guardrails. 

Nextgov/FCW: Can you describe some of the resource allocation for this new combined office that you’re overseeing? 

Tripathi: It’s very dynamic right now. There are certain things that are in the fiscal year 2025 budget, but I think there's a recognition that the needs have grown even in the time since the submission of the FY 25 budget. We're making more of an effort to be able to do the kinds of things that we wanted to do prior to this move and have more of a departmental focus on investing in these resources.

We had three people at the department level who were focused on AI prior to the move. We had too few resources already, so this is about making sure we've got the organization structure to be able to define what resources we need, and also have a place to make sure those resources are used in the most effective and efficient manner possible.

Nextgov/FCW: What is your biggest priority right now?

Tripathi: This is a really significant step forward for the department. This step is kind of a recognition that technology is strategically vital to the way we think about the delivery of healthcare and human services across the country. So we're now going to structure ourselves and organize ourselves to be able to attack that head on and make sure that we're on top of it for the American people.