New HHS CIO Prioritizes Cybersecurity, CX in 2025

Jennifer Wendel, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) newly appointed CIO, outlined her top priorities for the new year, including cybersecurity, customer experience and workforce training, in an upcoming HealthCast with GovCIO Media & Research.

“With her impressive tenure as the HHS Acting CIO since December 2023 and previously serving as Deputy CIO, Jennifer brings unparalleled knowledge, vision and a remarkable 28-year track record of federal service, driving innovation and security across IT systems that support our over 83,000 employees,” HHS Office of the Chief Information Officer said on LinkedIn announcing Wendel’s appointment.

Wendel said cybersecurity will be one of her top focus areas to ensure HHS protects health records and sensitive data.

“We are constantly looking at our cybersecurity measures and making risk-based decisions, as well as ensuring that all of our employees, our contractors, are appropriately trained to identify phishing tests. We’re also working to mature our incident response processes,” said Wendel.

Wendel highlighted the importance of a skilled workforce to meet the demands of an increasingly digital work environment. Wendel plans to invest in workforce training to promote digital literacy and back the agency’s cybersecurity priorities, reducing the risk of insider threats.

“We need to bring in people with the right credentials and make sure they’re in the right jobs, and that they have the training available to ensure we’re positioning them to be the most successful in their position,” said Wendel. “We have to train our IT professionals on the latest and greatest capabilities for information technology. But, we also want to make sure that our employees across the agency understand cybersecurity and the risks that they bring to the table all of the time.”

HHS is the largest grant making agency in the U.S. The agency is currently in the process of modernizing grants.gov. Wendel wants the system to be an extremely simple and accessible tool for posting, finding, sharing and applying for federal financial assistance. Her ultimate goal is to improve the grant experience for both the applicants and the grant makers.

“So the people applying for the grants, we’re trying to improve the way you that they would search and discover funding opportunities, making it easy to find and apply for those grant opportunities,” said Wendel. “If you work for a federal grant making agency, we’re making it easier for your communities to find the funding that they need. We’re really trying to make it simple for us to be able to fund these critically important services in a much quicker and more effective and efficient manner.”

Wendel explained the progress HHS has made with its 2022-2026 Strategic Plan and outlined next steps for the agency’s IT modernization, targeting advancements in cloud adoption.

“We really want to focus on making sure that our workforce is trained in the best manner to use applications in the cloud in a secure fashion,” said Wendel. “As we’re moving to the cloud, we want to make sure that we’re doing it in a secure manner to protect that data. And going to the cloud also allows us to scale resources up or down as needs occur. We’re always trying to make sure that we’re getting the best value for our investments when it’s needed.”