President Joe Biden proposed a $6 trillion budget May 28 for fiscal year 2022, which includes funding for health IT.
Five takeaways for health IT:
- To support agencies as they modernize and secure outdated IT systems, the budget includes $500 million for the Technology Modernization Fund. This will address IT modernization challenges, bolster cybersecurity defenses and improve the delivery of COVID-19 pandemic relief.
- The budget contains $9.8 billion in cybersecurity funding to secure federal and civilian networks and support efforts to share information, standards and best practices with critical infrastructure partners.
- This funding includes $110 million for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and $750 million for agencies affected by recent, significant cyberattacks to address gaps in security capability.
- The budget will allow the federal government to recruit, retain, and train an IT workforce that can build, maintain, and secure federal information and information systems to address the IT workforce shortage. The American Rescue Plan includes funding for the hiring of IT and cybersecurity experts.
- Data collection will get a huge boost. The CDC will be provided the largest budget authority increase in nearly two decades at $8.7 billion. A portion of this funding will be geared toward modernizing public health data collection nationwide. The CDC’s Social Determinants of Health Program will get $153 million to improve data collection and health equity for racial and ethnic populations.