The BUYSMARTER Journey

Lori Ruderman

Department of Health and Human Services Director, BuySmarter PMO

Kenneth Thomson

HHS, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Administration, BUYSMARTER Solution Architect at Nationwide IT Services, Inc.

BUYSMARTER is a transformative, data-driven initiative leveraging the collective purchasing power ($24B/year) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to secure lower prices, achieve operational efficiencies, and generate cost savings on goods and services.

BUYSMARTER ‘s proof of concept used Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) technology to analyze departmental requirements based on current HHS-wide spend data. This helps identify opportunities to consolidate contract vehicles across agencies within HHS to leverage overlapping requirements at a significant cost savings for the federal government.

BUYSMARTER is positive initiative that is driving cultural change in support of HHS Reimagine. It is intended to focus on utilization of new and emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence and robotics, to analyze spend across HHS to make better informed decisions about price conscious purchasing in order to achieve:

• Collaborative, collective, and coordinated forecasting across HHS that leverages buying power to generate savings through bulk purchasing and effective spend tracking

• Organizational alignment that eliminates waste and risk through improved transparency and accountability

• An acquisition organizational structure that is cohesive across HHS and operates in an efficient and effective