Federal spending monitor fedXccel projects that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will spend nearly $5 billion on 670+ major technology initiatives next year. This might seem like a lot, but the department’s overall budget is a whopping $698 billion for 2007 which reflects a 9 percent increase over 2006. With the funds, transforming healthcare via information technology deployments is a major will be its major strategy.

“The Healthcare industry has been slow to adopt Information Technology thus far,” said Gaurav Pal, who heads fedXccel. “This is about to change with HHS taking an aggressive role in providing investments for significant upgrades.”

Department spending will reflect the Bush Administration’s emphasis on promoting the adoption of centralized health record management and allowing systems to share data to help contain rising health care costs.

“Consolidation of data centers, connecting systems and a technology refresh to component based architectures are thrust areas,” said Pal. “Private firms with expertise in these areas are likely to be called upon to help with this transition.”

For a listing of the top-30 HHS Technology opportunities by program visit: http://www.fedxccel.com.