President Trump has introduced a strategy that aims to help the federal government respond to biological threats and boost the U.S. biodefense enterprise.

Trump noted in his recently signed National Security Presidential Memorandum that secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services will oversee the implementation of the National Biodefense Strategy, the White House said Tuesday.

The NSPM also authorizes the establishment of a cabinet-level biodefense steering committee that will deal with issues on bioterrorism and outbreaks of deadly diseases.

The president additionally assigned John Bolton, U.S. national security advisor, to review biological threats and focus on biodefense actions annually to allow the federal government to prepare and respond to biological incidents.

Trump said his administration will evaluate the biodefense needs of the U.S., as well as regularly monitor the implementation of the National Biodefense Strategy to leverage the government’s biodefense resources and actions.

The plan is based on lessons learned from previous incidents such as the 2001 anthrax attacks, the 2009 influenza pandemic and 2014 West Africa Ebola epidemic.

Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson has said the service plans to increase the total number of operational squadrons to 386 and add 40K more personnel by 2030 to counter potential military threats posed by Russia and China, Reuters reported Monday.

That figure represents a 24 percent increase from the service’s 312 squadrons.

Wilson told reporters Monday that the service would not be able to maintain its military edge in the next decade at its current size.

“The Air Force is too small for what the nation is asking us to do,” she added.

Wilson said she expects the service’s plan to establish a new “space force” to cost approximately $13B in the next five years, according to a report by Defense News.

The report said the service would need to allocate approximately $7.2B for space force components, $2.2B for headquarters elements, $1.8B for “direct reporting units,” $595M to hire more personnel for the proposed space command and $1M to establish the new space-focused combatant command in the next five years.

“To stand up a department that’s responsible for recruiting and training and planning and programming and budgeting and all of the leadership requirements that a department has, it’s a major undertaking,” Wilson said.
 

The General Services Administration plans to incorporate a new special item number for automated contact center platforms and services into the Information Technology Schedule 70 contract vehicle by the start of the government’s fiscal year 2019, Nextgov reported Monday.

The report said GSA will introduce SIN 132-20 in an effort to help federal customers explore and procure commercial automation technology platforms such as voice and speech recognition, text-to-speech, artificial intelligence and chatbots.

According to the agency, the new subcategory is intended to replace the USA Contact indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract.

GSA’s IT Schedule 70 program uses ordering procedures designed to accelerate the procurement lead time by up to 50 percent compared with that of the open market.

The new SIN is scheduled for an Oct. 1 rollout and the agency plans to hold a webinar on Friday to discuss the topic.

The Government Accountability Office has recommended to the Defense Department to implement a common measure when evaluating the performance of health care providers working for the Military Health System.

GAO said in a report published Monday there is also a need for DoD to create a wider range of classifications to measure quality of service and medical conditions that can be assessed, as the department’s existing measures only cover a few.

The DoD’s assistant secretary for health affairs is also directed to establish performance standards that align with MHS’ practices for direct care and take necessary steps to make providers meet those standards.

GAO recently discovered that the DoD fails to employ the following practices: employ a standard measure when assessing all health care providers and use methods covering a wide range of medical conditions when considering health care providers’ performance.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has released a draft report that provides recommendations on mitigating technical trust-related concerns that may affect the adoption of Internet-of-Things products and services.

NIST said Monday the document identifies 17 possible issues related to the performance and credibility of IoT systems, as well as offers additional research areas on IoT trust.

The 17 trust concerns identified in the draft report are based on six trustworthiness elements defined in NIST Special Publication 800-183, which provides information on IoT based on the discovery of the technology’s sensing, computing, communication and actuation capabilities. 

The agency intends to inform managers, supervisors, technical staff and entities involved in IoT policy decisions, government and procurement about what to consider when acquiring an IoT product or service.

NIST will accept public feedback on the draft guidance until Nov. 5.

Researchers from the Department of Health and Human Services‘ Office of the Chief Technology Officer have learned that HHS constituent agencies do not have a standardized mechanism for sharing restricted and nonpublic data resulting in procedural inefficiencies and the siloing of information.

The researchers said in a September 2018 report that there is no uniform documentary requirement across and even within HHS agencies for data access requests, with some agencies preferring the use of interagency agreements and others favoring data sharing agreements.

The research team also observed that requisite documents could be subjected to additional review, delaying the release of requested information by as much as one year.

Furthermore, the investigators found out that many agencies do not have a dedicated unit assigned to track data requests and their outcomes, resulting in requestors likely encountering “difficulty in navigating various procedures and forms.”

The absence of a “data governance group” at the agency or even departmental level “can also lead to a lack of accountability regarding access requests,” the investigative team noted, adding: “There was little evidence of agency-level procedures to address concerns if access is significantly and inappropriately delayed or denied altogether.”