The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has been designated as a Quality Service Management Office (QSMO) that will work to streamline the federal grants issuance process through shared services.
HHS said Monday that the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) assigned Grants QSMOs to help standardize grants processing systems and drive efficiency while improving user experience for applicants, recipients and the federal workforce.
The QSMO must operate in three roles, namely solutions manager, marketplace coordinator and community builder. The office must oversee a “marketplace of solutions” which will include shared technology and non-technology services for customer satisfaction improvement, process automation and data standardization.
Eric Hargan, deputy secretary of HHS, said the designation builds on the department’s work on its ReInvent Grants Management Initiative that began in 2017. The QSMO status also “affirms the long-standing role of HHS as the largest grant-making agency”, he noted.
According to HHS, government-wide grant allocations in fiscal year 2020 increased to $2 trillion from $750 billion due to the government’s COVID-19 response efforts.
OMB has also assigned a QSMO status to the General Services Administration (GSA), Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the Department of the Treasury to address inefficiencies in financial services, cybersecurity and human resources procedures.