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GAO-24-107257 1 (2024-05-28)

handle is hein.gao/gaoqdu0001 and id is 1 raw text is: U.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 441 G St. N.W. Comptroller General Washington, DC 20548 of the United States May 28, 2024 The Honorable Xavier Becerra Secretary The Honorable Andrea Palm Deputy Secretary U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 200 Independence Ave., SW Washington, D.C. 20201 Priority Open Recommendations: Department of Health and Human Services Dear Secretary Becerra and Deputy Secretary Palm: The purpose of this letter is to update you on the overall status of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) implementation of GAO's recommendations and to call your continued personal attention to areas where open recommendations should be given high priority.' In November 2023, we reported that, on a government-wide basis, 75 percent of our recommendations made 4 years ago were implemented.2 HHS's recommendation implementation rate was about 68 percent. As of April 2024, HHS had 417 open recommendations. Implementing these recommendations could significantly improve HHS's operations. In our May 2023 letter, we designated 45 recommendations as priorities for HHS, and HHS has implemented seven of them.3 'Priority recommendations are those that GAO believes warrant priority attention from heads of key departments or agencies. They are highlighted because, upon implementation, they may significantly improve government operations, for example, by realizing large dollar savings; eliminating mismanagement, fraud, and abuse; or making progress toward addressing a high-risk or duplication issue. 2GAO, Performance and Accountability Report: Fiscal Year 2023, GAO-24-900483 (Washington, D.C.: Nov. 15, 2023). 31n addition to the seven priority recommendations that HHS implemented, we closed five recommendations as no longer valid and determined that three recommendations no longer warrant priority attention. We made three recommendations in February 2020 related to establishing plans and guidance for the Biodefense Coordination Team. However, in October 2022 the White House issued an updated National Biodefense Strategy and Implementation Plan, which made the Biodefense Coordination Team obsolete. We made another recommendation in September 2020 related to collecting more complete data on COVID-1 9 cases and deaths in nursing homes retrospectively to January 1, 2020, and to clarifying the extent to which nursing homes reported data before May 8, 2020. As of October 2023, the recommendation remained unimplemented and we determined that, at that point in time, retrospectively collecting data prior to May 8, 2020, could prove burdensome for both nursing homes and HHS and detract from resources that could otherwise be used to support resident care. We made a fifth recommendation in January 2021 related to the development of a comprehensive national COVID-1 9 testing strategy. However, with the expiration of the COVID-19 public health emergency, the finding that COVID-19 is endemic, and the circulation of other infectious diseases, we determined that this recommendation is no longer valid. GAO-24-107257 HHS Priority Recommendations Page 1

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