System Census Evolution Helps CMS Connect the Dots
In 2009, the Department of Health and Human Services’ CIO distributed a memo to every agency under the department’s umbrella requesting a single inventory of business systems.
That’s when David Dougherty joined the team to help design a System Census for CMS. He’s been refining the Census ever since.
Today, along with gathering data, the folks that build the Census also present the data in user-friendly fashion, for instance in easy-to-read business process models and lists that can be queried.
“One of the things I emphasize is, this is a survey that is broad but not deep. The survey doesn’t get far into the technical weeds. It’s mostly about federal IT management,” says Dougherty.
He explains that there are three primary motivations for conducting a census:
1. It’s the law. The Clinger-Cohen Act of 1996 established that each federal agency must have an enterprise architecture program and a Chief Enterprise Architect. In 2009, the HHS CIO published a policy stating that the enterprise architecture program at each operating division must maintain a system inventory.
2. The Census helps CMS staff answer data calls, which are requests for information from executives or legislators. There are generally over 100 data calls every single year, and answering them can be time-consuming. Many of the questions on the first System Census in 2009 originated in data calls. Now, the Census questions anticipate data calls so that staff have answers ready at hand. “Our approach,” says Dougherty, “is to gather good basic data for whatever calls come in. The Census is designed to give the best bang for our buck.”
3. The Census is critical to planning major transformative initiatives. Large projects like the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, the New Medicare Card Project, and the Quality Payment Program, all began by referencing the Census which helps project managers to identify stakeholders, track data, and estimate costs.
Currently, there are 167 “business systems” at CMS. Business systems are systems with a budget of at least $100,000 that fulfill mission-critical objectives. Some are accessed by just a few users and some by millions. The average number of users per system is 220,000
“CMS is a jungle of systems. It can be pretty hard to follow how everything connects,” says Dougherty.
But if CMS is a jungle, Dougherty is like an ecologist who documents how all those systems interact with one another.
With over a decade of results, the System Census also provides valuable information about technology trends at CMS. For example, 13% of systems were on the cloud in 2015. Now that figure is 71%.
“CMS is a success story of an agency that has taken most systems to the cloud,” says Dougherty.
The FY23 version of the Census opens on Monday, November 14. It will be the most streamlined, user-friendly, and strategic Census yet.
For business owners, the System Census takes some time to fill out, especially because they will need input from teammates who oversee different aspects of their systems, including data pathways and budgets. For that reason, respondents have four weeks to complete the survey, which closes on Friday, December 9. If completed over time, it’s not an especially onerous task.
“What we’re trying to avoid,” says Dougherty, “is having someone pound this 9-page survey out in two hours before they leave for the weekend or while their budget person is away on vacation. That’s a recipe for bad data.”
To reduce the need for multiple surveys throughout the year, the System Census also gathers questions from other components at CMS such as the AI Explorers Program, the API Community of Practice, and the Procurement Summary Information Pilot.
Since 2018, the number of survey questions has been reduced by half. And answers are pre-populated from the last survey, so business owners just need to update their responses, not start from scratch.
“We’ve worked really hard to make this survey as frictionless as possible,” says Dougherty.