The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) plans to invest $150 million to help Americans in underserved communities access COVID-19 treatment. 

HHS said Wednesday that it may increase the capacity of health care centers, hire more staff and deliver more equipment to boost the distribution of monoclonal antibody treatments.

Communities with high intensities of COVID-19 cases will receive priority based on the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention's index for social vulnerability.

Monoclonal antibody therapeutics, approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), work to neutralize the coronavirus and prevent the COVID-19 disease from developing in the human body.

The U.S. has distributed over 900,000 courses of the COVID-19 treatment across health care facilities in the country.

Christopher Maier, acting assistant defense secretary for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict (ASD SOLIC), said the U.S. military must refocus information operations toward diverse threat environments to stay ahead of adversaries, Defense One reported Wednesday.

Maier said at a House hearing that the Department of Defense (DoD) must evolve fast and bring diversity into recruitment procedures to bring significant benefits to national security missions.

A former defense official also said at the hearing that the U.S. Special Operations Command's (USSOCOM) challenges in information operations stem from not having enough civilian oversight on the command. 

ASD SOLIC fills the role of USSOCOM management, according to Defense One. The defense secretary’s office is currently reviewing the potential elevation of the ASD SOLIC’s authorities, according to Maier. 

James Sullivan, defense intelligence officer for cyber at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), noted that IO will serve as a key factor in U.S. competition with adversaries like Russia and China. He added that information domain threats are “here to stay” and that China is likely to surpass Russia in IO through its artificial intelligence and machine learning efforts.

“Cyber is a great equalizer in that nobody is 100-percent mature in this domain and information dominance is effective,” he noted.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report summarizing its insights on previous work and recommendations encompassing three areas for building up the federal workforce in science and technology.

Those three areas are strategic workforce planning to identify gaps and future needs, improving federal pay and hiring and addressing factors that affect the federal work environment and GAO said in a report published Wednesday that it has made several recommendations to address issues related to human capital management, particularly in science and technology.

“We testified that while agencies have implemented some of our prior recommendations, they haven't fully implemented others,” GAO said in the report.

For instance, the congressional watchdog assessed the cybersecurity workforce planning strategies of 24 agencies for information technology employees in October 2019 and found that most of the agencies had not fully addressed five of eight workforce planning activities due to limited resources and competing priorities, among other reasons.

GAO made a recommendation to 18 of those 24 agencies to fully implement those IT workforce planning activities and found that 13 agencies agreed with the recommendation and the remaining organizations “expressed a range of views.”

“Some agencies have made progress implementing the recommendation; however, as of March 2021, all of the recommendations remain open pending agency actions to fully implement them,” the report reads.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has started a proceeding to determine whether to terminate the authority of Pacific Networks and its ComNet subsidiary to provide telecommunications services within the U.S.

FCC said Wednesday it issued a show cause order to Pacific Networks and ComNet, which are Chinese state-owned entities, in 2020 to explain why the commission should not begin the process for ending their domestic and international authorizations under section 214 of the Communications Act.

The commission assessed the companies’ response and comments from agencies within the executive branch and “determined that Pacific Networks and ComNet have failed at this stage to dispel serious concerns regarding their retention of section 214 authority in the United States.”

FCC said the launch of the proceeding will allow the entities to present additional evidence and respond to specific questions.

The U.S. Army is deploying new networking tools for Capability Set 21 as part of the service’s network modernization plan, Federal News Network reported Wednesday. 

“We’ve recently conducted an operational test of the radio systems, and there is an ongoing force-on-force combat training center rotation. Many of those systems are being fielded today to our maneuver formations, and also to our expeditionary signal attires,” Maj. Gen. Peter Gallagher, director of the network cross-functional team at Army Futures Command (AFC), said at an Association of the United States Army event Tuesday.

One of the major elements of Capability Set 21 is the Integrated Tactical Network, which integrates new network transport capabilities and commercial components into the Army’s tactical network environment to provide more flexible and faster communications systems for maneuver brigades.

“We are looking to be much more resilient in our network backbone and have much better capacity in our in our transport,” Gallagher said. “We want to converge a lot of these legacy systems into a common data fabric and really accelerate the speed of decision making by integrating sensors, leveraging cloud and edge computing optimization. We want to ensure that we’ve got the data and the applications and the ability to integrate shooters or effects at speed."

He also offered updates on a design review for the next round of modernized network capabilities in 2023.

“We’re on the cusp of a preliminary design review for our Capability Set 23 over the course of the next month. Then we’re going to continue prototyping over the next year-and-a-half to really refine and converge on an approach for what Capability Set 23 will look like,” Gallagher said.

To register for this virtual forum, visit the Potomac Officers Club Events page.

CNSI announced Wednesday that it received the top overall score in the 2020 NASPO ValuePoint™ multi-state evaluation of Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) Claims Processing and Management Services. CNSI received the highest composite proposal and demonstration scores and the top overall weighted score.

“We anticipate 90% of future state Medicaid modernization procurements will leverage NASPO ValuePoint’s cooperative contracting model, since the proposals, tiered pricing, and multi-state evaluations are completed and publicly available for any interested state. This relieves a significant burden on a state’s Medicaid program and procurement staff and saves substantial time and money,” commented former Wash100 Award recipient and CNSI CEO Todd Stottlemyer.

CNSI’s performance will permit states and territories to procure CNSI solutions through NASPO ValuePoint. These solutions include Medicaid claims processing and provider enrollment solutions, technology services encompassing call centers, cloud hosting, financial management services, business operations, data analytics and federal reporting.

“Our Lead State Model™, which is supported by a multi-state Sourcing Team, allows us to leverage the expertise and buying power of multiple states to deliver the highest standard of excellence in government procurement. As NASPO ValuePoint continues to make inroads into the world of Medicaid Management Information Services for the benefit of our member states, we’d like to recognize that CNSI has been added to the newest suite of ValuePoint Master Agreements in this complex and challenging area,” said Sarah Hilderbrand COO of NASPO.

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has received and approved NASPO ValuePoint MMIS master agreements. Due to the fact, they are a major funder of Medicaid technology modernization initiatives for multiple states. CMS will continue to stress the importance of modular and highly configurable technology solutions, which is a fundamental part of CNSI’s services.

“I’m extremely proud of the work CNSI has done to create a flexible and scalable modular platform that supports mission-critical state Medicaid programs. CNSI’s configurable evoBRIX X platform allowed our state clients in 2020 to quickly use new COVID-19 testing codes and eligibility groups, getting critical funds to healthcare providers,” concluded Stottlemyer.