The White House Blog: Technology

Opening Up FDA

In previous administrations, stakeholders have complained about the FDA’s lack of transparency. The agency used to be considered a "black box" that makes important decisions without explaining them. Following the leadership and commitment of President Obama and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to transparent and open government, in June 2009, FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg launched FDA’s Transparency Initiative to make FDA much more transparent to the American public.

Commissioner Hamburg formed an internal task force representing key leaders of FDA to oversee the initiative. Over the last eight months, the Task Force has held two public meetings, launched an online blog and opened a docket. The online blog and the docket have received over 1,380 comments to date.

Comments from the public first suggested the idea that FDA provide basic information about the agency in an user-friendly, accessible format. As one person stated, "I would like to see the FDA ‘faces behind the curtain’ and what their jobs are. Who IS the FDA and HOW does it work? Make it simple . . ."

Early this year, FDA launched a web-based resource called FDA Basics  to provide the public with basic information about FDA and how the agency does its work. FDA Basics now includes:

1.  115 questions and answers about FDA and the products the agency regulates (for example, see questions about drugs here)
2.   7 short videos that explain various agency activities (for example, learn how FDA manages product recalls here )
3. 7 conversations with agency officials about the work of their Offices

Visitors to FDA Basics can rate on a scale from 1 to 5  how helpful the answers are. And visitors are invited to suggest additional questions as they navigate around the site. We have received nearly 1400 comments since the launch of FDA Basics and are using these comments to update the resource.

Each month, senior officials from FDA product centers and offices host 30 minute webinars about a specific topic and answer questions from the public about that topic. These sessions are announced on the FDA web site and the online blog.

The FDA Basics webinar series was launched in February with a webinar on "Access to Investigational Drugs," hosted by FDA’s Office of Special Health Issues. An audio replay  and copy of the PowerPoint slides are available on the FDA Basics web site. The next webinar on FDA's inspection process will be held later this month. Details about the webinar will be available on the FDA Basics homepage.

Early reaction to FDA Basics has been positive. One blogger wrote, "[t]he initiative can go a long way toward educating the public about what FDA does—and how—and also provide industry with real-time answers to their daily challenges, ultimately improving product quality and patient safety." Another blogger wrote, "[i]t is really well put together, clear and works quite well. . . . The site is not only supportive of transparency, but is highly instructive and educational."

Check out FDA Basics and let us know what you think.

Joshua Sharfstein is Principal Deputy Commissioner at FDA and Chair of the Transparency Task Force. Afia Asamoah is a Special Assistant in the Office of the Commissioner and coordinator of the Transparency Initiative.

Connecting America

Today the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) released the National Broadband Plan, called for in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to identify ways to expand access to broadband and promote economic growth and job creation.

In his statement on the plan’s release, President Obama committed to “build upon our efforts over the past year to make America's nationwide broadband infrastructure the world’s most powerful platform for economic growth and prosperity.” To that end, I’ve established a Broadband Subcommittee of the National Science and Technology Council’s Committee on Technology, co-chaired by Larry Strickling, Assistant Secretary for Communications and Information at the Department of Commerce, and Scott Blake Harris, General Counsel at the Department of Energy. This interagency group will focus closely on the plan by the FCC—an independent agency—and advise the Administration on actions it can take to promote broadband as a platform to improve the lives of everyday Americans and drive innovation in the economy.

The Obama Administration is committed to continuing to build upon the nearly $2 billion already committed by the Commerce and Agriculture Departments to deliver broadband to unserved and underserved communities, stimulate job creation, and foster long-term economic growth. It has also undertaken initiatives to bring the efficiencies and innovations of broadband to many sectors of the economy. These initiatives include the Department of Health and Human Services’ commitment to facilitating the movement of healthcare information safely and securely from where it is collected to where it is needed in order to reduce costs and improve patient care; the Department of Energy’s investment of more than $11 billion in Recovery Act funds to use Internet-like technologies to modernize our electricity transmission system with an interactive “Smart Grid”; the Department of Homeland Security’s work to integrate broadband and next-generation technologies into the National Emergency Communications Plan, which will extend the developing advanced-information technology ecosystem to include emergency response; and the collaboration across all Departments and agencies throughout the Administration to ensure that new broadband platforms and the services that travel over them are secure.

The Administration will continue to engage the public on this issue, as Secretary Arne Duncan did last week when he called for public input on the draft National Education Technology Plan, which articulates a bold vision of a world-class education environment powered by technology that relies on broadband access both in and out of school. The Administration also continues to implement its Open Government Directive, which is seeking public input on how each Federal agency should achieve greater transparency, participation, and collaboration, in part by taking fuller advantage of the capabilities of broadband.

Thank you, Chairman Genachowski, the Commissioners, Executive Director Blair Levin, and the FCC staff for your tireless work and your dedication to the broadband future of the country.

Aneesh Chopra is U.S. Chief Technology Officer and Associate Director for Technology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy

Sunshine Over Washington D.C.

This Sunshine Week, as we join individuals and organizations across the country in recognizing the vital importance of openness in government, we wanted to look back on the many areas where we have opened government up and let the sunshine in—and also look forward to how we will build on our efforts so far to promote transparency.  The White House today issued this Memorandum from the Chief of Staff and the White House Counsel taking due note of our successes—and urging the agencies to redouble these efforts in our second year in key areas such as Freedom of Information Act compliance.

While there is much yet to be done, it has been an extraordinary first year.  As a result of our overall record on transparency, we received an A grade for our openness work from a consortium of independent outside government reform groups and have even gotten praise from those who are sometimes pretty tough on us.  

We began this work on day one of the Administration, when the President issued a Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government , calling for more transparent, participatory, and collaborative government.  

Consistent with that approach, the White House this year began publishing the names of those who visit the White House. Each month, tens of thousands of records of visitors are made available online. This gives the public an unprecedented look at whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process. And in that spirit, we also provided on-line access to White House staff financial reports and salaries, and a host of other White House information, much of which had never been instantly available by internet before.

To reform a system that too often resulted in unnecessary and costly classification of records, the President also issued an Executive Order that speeds declassification by balancing the priorities of national security with the public’s right to know. The President furthermore reversed an executive order that previously limited access to presidential records.  And he issued a memorandum to begin reform of the government’s FOIA system, establishing a clear presumption of openness. The Attorney General affirmed this change when he issued new FOIA guidelines for all agencies throughout government.  We believe that the first-year Chief FOIA Officer Reports that are forthcoming from the agencies will show progress on FOIA, though an additional year of data (and of hard work!) will be necessary to make a fuller judgment.

We have also adopted a policy of affirmatively disclosing vast amounts of government information.  We launched Data.gov in May, 2009 with 47 data sets but ended the year with over 118,000 all freely available in machine-readable format.  By making nutritional information available, the Administration empowered parents to plan smarter meals for their families. By making information on the status and causes of airport delays available, the government enabled travelers to better plan their days. By making workplace safety information available, we helped employers keep America’s workers out of harm’s way.

Mitigating the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse, the Administration is also tracking how the government uses the money with which the people have entrusted it with easy-to-understand websites like Recovery.gov, data.gov, and USASpending.gov (the IT Dashboard). These websites allow American taxpayers to see precisely what entities receive federal money –and how and where the money is spent.

Tying all of these efforts together, in December 2009 OMB issued an historic Open Government Directive, instructing every agency to take immediate, specific steps to open their operations up to the public. The product of an unprecedented outreach effort to tap the public’s ideas, the Directive instructs agencies to place high-value information to the public online in open, accessible, machine-readable formats. It also aims to instill the values of transparency, participation, and collaboration into the culture of every agency by requiring each agency to formulate - in consultation with the American people - an Open Government Plan and website.  In April, the agencies will release Open Government Plans pursuant to the Directive.

We are proud of our successes, but we of course recognize that much remains to be done, and we intend to redouble our efforts to make government as transparent, collaborative and participatory as possible.

Happy Sunshine Week.

Norm Eisen is Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform

Getting Outside the Four Walls of Washington

I just returned from a productive trip to the West Coast, where I met with technology innovators from the private sector and state and local governments to hear their ideas about how the Federal Government can leverage the power of technology to deliver better results for the American people. As I’ve said before, the Federal Government does not have a monopoly on the best ideas, and in order to truly change business as usual here in Washington --  we’ve got to look beyond the Beltway.

The Obama Administration is committed to making the Federal Government work better for the American people.  Closing the technology gap between the private and public sectors is essential to delivering the best results possible.  That is why I returned to the West Coast to continue to meet with leaders who have taken innovative steps and implemented bold strategies to drive progress and productivity.

The power of raw data to provide consumers with relevant information and inform their decisions is already being realized. For example, as I was heading to the airport, I used “FlyOnTime.us” to check if my flight was on time and to see what the wait in line would be. This innovative website was created by a group of independent developers using Data.gov. 

My first stop was San Francisco, where I joined Mayor Gavin Newsom and city CIO Chris Vein for the launch of the nationwide Open311 API (Application Programming Interface) initiative, which will open up access to local government services across the country. Open311 will enable people to track the status of repairs or improvements, while also allowing them to make new requests for services. For example, I can use the same application when I am home in Washington, DC to report a broken parking meter as I would in San Francisco. I also spoke to CIOs from Boston, Chicago, DC, Los Angeles, Seattle, and San Francisco about accelerating the development of applications that the American people can use in their everyday lives.

From downtown San Francisco, it was out to Silicon Valley to meet with venture capitalists and technology innovators, including Mint.com, Mozilla, and Facebook, at IDEO Labs to discuss how government can improve how it is delivering services to the American people. We used a visual storyboard concept to capture our conversation, which you can see here.

Later that afternoon, I met with companies like Apple and Google to learn how innovation is happening in the consumer space, through new platforms such as Apple’s online App Store.

On Thursday, I travelled to the “other” Washington, where I started the day with CIOs from organizations such as Weyerhaeuser and Microsoft to hear about how they successfully manage large-scale IT projects. I also had the opportunity to look at some of the impressive investments in next generation technologies being made by companies like Microsoft and Amazon.

I then delivered a speech at the University of Washington titled “Making Government Work: Closing the Technology Gap to Deliver for the American People.” I was very encouraged by the response and was pleasantly surprised when following my speech, dozens of professors and students lined up to ask questions and continue the dialogue. 

At the end of the day, I attended an industry awards celebration for local technology entrepreneurs, hosted by the Washington Technology Industry Association. It was great to see entrepreneurs from the “other” Washington talk to me about their ideas for helping us change the way Washington, DC works.

Vivek Kundra is U.S. Chief Information Officer