The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is utilizing cloud technology on its path to digital transformation to help it follow its internal mantra of “Buy vs. Build,” according to Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Mohammed Sohail Chaudhry.
During the Nextgov/FCW and Route Fifty Cloud Summit on Thursday, Chaudhry shared why cloud plays such a critical role in FDA’s digital transformation journey, explaining that it creates “an environment of innovation.”
“Digital transformation is all about business transformation for us,” Chaudhry said. “On the same token, I have to say that our FDA staff are creative, and they are committed to our noble mission of protecting and promoting public health. That’s the drive, and they’re eager to find a faster path to the critical data elements that help us make the decisions that we need to make.”
“Cloud really helps us do that. It allows us to scale. It provides us cost effectiveness. It provides us reliability … In many cases, it has helped us reduce the IT overhead,” he added. “In a nutshell, cloud is a critical path in our journey, and our mantra internally within FDA for some time right now has been ‘buy vs. build.’ We are no longer signing up to build overly customized on-prem solutions. Cloud is the way to go forward.”
Cloud technology is also helping the FDA to collaborate with its partners more effectively, the CTO said.
For instance, Chaudhry said the agency is trying to create a shared “OneFDA Ecosystem” as part of the FDA’s IT Strategy for Fiscal Years 2024 to 2027. In this ecosystem, he said all of the FDA’s applications and systems will operate “as one gigantic engine” where business is the driver.
“We believe that continuous collaboration and continuous innovative ideas to streamline business will really result in our next generation of technological investments, technological solutions,” he said. “For the most part, that’s all in the cloud – it’s not just doing it once and saying that it’s done. Creating a platform and an environment of innovation is the key to our success, and I think cloud plays a very, very critical role.”
Similarly, another mantra the FDA is working towards going forward is “transparency, openness, and communication.”
As part of that effort, Chaudhry said the FDA is working on its IT operating plan, which it updates annually, to tell everyone “how we plan on doing these things that we are committed to do.”
The FDA Scientific Computing Board (SCB) and the Office of Digital Transformation (ODT) are also gearing up to host the Scientific Computing and Digital Transformation Symposium next month in Maryland, to advance their strategic goal to “Create a Shared OneFDA Ecosystem.”
Chaudhry encouraged listeners to attend the event and meet FDA officials in person to “better understand” their digital transformation journey.
