HHSinnovates -- better customer service and savings from Washington

A lot of people in Washington and throughout the Federal gov't are figuring out how to provide much better return for the taxpayer dollar.

That means listening to their rank and file employees and committing to getting stuff done. I've seen that happening at the Dept of Veterans Affairs, and now it's happening at a really big chunk of the gov't, Health and Human Services. It's an internal effort, but the big stuff's in place: getting employees to suggest improvement, and commitment at the highest levels.

46 innovation stories are posted on the HHS
intranet site for voting to make 3 team awards. For the inaugural competition,
126 innovation activities were submitted by employees of 9 federal agencies in
HHS.

Voting lasts for two weeks, and Secretary Sebelius
will make selections. Winners get to tell the Secretary their story of innovation
and how it might be applied across HHS and the federal work space, get an award,
and $2,500 in cash. Some of the innovations are about inventing new processes to
save time and resources, others are using technology to address health issues, a
variety of health information technology applications, etc.

The Awards ceremony will happen sometime during the week of August 2nd and will be webcasted. On that day, HHS will launch its innovations
gallery to the public.

"So far, its exceeded all of our wildest dreams"