By Barbara DePompa

Industry observers maintain a looming workforce shortage, lack of training, the difficulty of balancing current workloads and a lack of extensive program management expertise, are among the biggest obstacles agencies must overcome in the future, as they work to manage projects under the ARRA program.

Market research firm INPUT, Reston, Va., reports that opportunities may exist for suppliers and contractors who can help agencies address management problems. “It would be beneficial to address concerns about program, financial and grants management, for example in proposals for new initiatives,” said Deniece Peterson, a principal analyst for INPUT.

Technologically speaking, the future appears bright for broadband and wireless technologies, healthcare-related IT and green technology initiatives. Modernizing buildings, and bringing older infrastructures into compliance with increasingly stringent energy efficiency requirements will require both funding and years of effort by federal state and local government organizations as well as many contractors and suppliers.

With so many different ways to access information on stimulus funding, via recovery.gov, grants.gov, fedbizopps and other programs, there’s a more immediate need, however, for contractor support to create an integrated acquisition environment that will assist government organizations in their ability to track, manage and report on stimulus funding and program outcomes, said Stan Soloway, president and CEO, Professional Services Council.

Unified communications via broadband and wireless networking technologies are also expected to grow. In this area, the challenge will be “to clearly demonstrate the significant cost benefits of unified communications, while simultaneously building a support model that can ensure confidence isn’t lost as capabilities are rolled out,” said Vince Pratuch, the federal director of business development for Cisco Systems Inc., at a recent Economic Stimulus conference in Falls Church, Va.
 

Meanwhile, opportunities are also great for technologies related to the emerging smart grid, which will create a nationwide electrical power system and will largely be reliant on solutions that store, distribute, manage and measure energy consumption. While there appear to be many opportunities within the smart grid initiative, Peterson said, questions remain as to the speed with which federal agencies will be able to move forward in implementing this lofty program.

And similar challenges surround healthcare IT, Peterson continued. As the future healthcare ecosystem evolves, the implications of possible reforms are still under debate. This makes it difficult to gauge possible future outcomes. Instead, she said, “INPUT sees waves of modernization coming.”

Soloway predicts that some of biggest chunks of stimulus spending, including healthcare IT, are pieces that will likely roll out slowest. He predicted that 75% of the funding for healthcare initiatives really won’t start flowing before 2011.

Within healthcare IT, there will be a need for technological solutions that enable healthcare providers to work smarter, using more modern technological solutions. Eventually, Peterson anticipates that healthcare information stored in national databases will be used to create a better picture of healthcare outcomes. By collecting and analyzing data to measure outcomes, providers “may eventually be paid based on outcomes, not just participation in programs such as Medicare,” she explained.

Industry observers maintain that the advances created by greater centralization of healthcare information are still years away, with state and local government organizations currently leading the way in modernizing regional healthcare systems. The federal agencies involved in healthcare provision must also be closely monitored, however, as those organizations are striving to share information and transform the provision of healthcare services for veterans and the disabled, for examples.

Ultimately, in spite of the technological bright spots, nagging concerns remain. “Expectations are high, but until now, those expectations have not been well-defined or managed, either on the process or policy side,” said Soloway. Also, the rules are important and will be heavily scrutinized in years to come, he added, meaning that oversight is still evolving, along with the ARRA funding initiative, and only time will tell if audit rules in two years will create problems for agencies when Congress looks back through spending in 2009.

In addition, because the ARRA program heavily favors fixed price contracting, it will be difficult for agencies and industry suppliers to meet expectations as both green technology and healthcare IT really don’t fit the fixed price contracting model, Soloway explained.

Further down the road, industry observers are hopeful that the economic stimulus program will stimulate a long-awaited national science and technology plan. “This type of initiative has been used by other countries in recent years to boost the development of those economies,” said Peterson. Such a program in the U.S. would spur a national research and development organization that could work to further shape future technological development, she said.  

Barbara DePompa is a freelance writer for 1105 Government Information Group’s Custom Media unit. This Economic Stimulus report was commissioned by the Custom Media Group, an independent editorial arm of 1105 Government Information Group. Specific topics are chosen in response to interest from the vendor community; however, sponsors are not guaranteed content contribution or review of content before publication. For more information about 1105 Government Information Group Custom Media, please email us at GIGCustomMedia@1105govinfo.com