Michael Marshall is a principal at Booz Allen Hamilton for Federal Health Market IT Modernization and Transformation. This blog was coauthored with Nikul Pandya, principal at Booz Allen Hamilton for Federal Health Market Cybersecurity, including Zero Trust concepts.

Technological advancement today is accelerating at such a pace that we need to think anew about how to modernize. This rapid pace of advancement — as well as the convergence of these advancements — makes it challenging for any large, complex enterprise to continue thinking of modernization as a single, isolated technology upgrade or refresh.

Instead, we are now entering an era of visionary planning for continuous innovation.

Consider how artificial intelligence, machine learning, advanced data analytics, 5G networks, the Internet of Things, automation, cloud computing, and Zero Trust cybersecurity are steadily transforming virtually every sector, including federal healthcare organizations. We see remarkable advancements unfolding almost daily in telehealth, genomics, precision medicine, wearable technologies, and digital twins — to name just a few arenas of progress — that are rapidly changing the world of medicine and healthcare.

To better position themselves for these rapid technological advancements, some federal healthcare agencies are moving toward the adoption of next-generation IT services.

NGITS are versatile, adaptable infrastructures and engineering/operations that can incorporate new mission-advancing technologies and business processes into the enterprise as they emerge in a thoughtful, integrated way.

An NGITS approach to modernization strives to balance two separate lines of endeavor. First is to continuously optimize existing engineering and operations, ensuring they are secure, cost-efficient, effective for the mission, and calibrated for the end users. Second is to continuously plan for the introduction of next-generation technologies and services where and when business and mission needs dictate.

This is a challenging balancing act, and there are many components that factor into accomplishing this. These include simultaneously standardizing processes; automating processes; and improving processes through the use of IT Service Management and Information Technology Infrastructure Library methods coupled with Zero Trust cybersecurity ingrained from the start of the program, cost avoidance throughout the program lifecycle, and continually keeping an eye on the future.

https://www.healthcareitnews.com/blog/visionary-planning-it-modernization-key-next-generation-it-services