Speed to impact: How federal agencies can boost operational readiness to respond to emerging public health threats

Having spent more than 20 years in public health, including a decade at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) developing national infectious disease strategic plans, I’ve seen firsthand that accelerated response during an emergency is certainly crucial—but it must be built on a foundation laid well in advance. In a recent conversation with MeriTalk, I had the opportunity to discuss how federal health agencies can prepare effectively by modernizing data and workflows for proactive, coordinated response to emerging public health threats while preserving transparency, accountability, and trust.

Design flexible operational playbooks that make speed the default, not the exception

Government agencies have historically not been known for moving in a speedy fashion. In particular, past public health responses often suffered delays in data and reporting, making it difficult for leaders to make data-driven decisions quickly.

By modernizing data infrastructures for speed and flexibility, health programs can expedite the path from data to response. In practice, this means flexible playbooks tailored to a specific threat, contracts that can be quickly adjusted, and a modern data infrastructure that leverages decision-ready, always-available dashboards with advanced data visualization and analytics tools. Evaluating readiness continuously is part of preparation, too. Testing through pilots builds the operational muscle programs need, paired with guardrails like secure, FedRAMP-authorized environments established before a threat appears.

Treat standardized data as an operational imperative

Public health hasn't seen the sustained investment that drove interoperability in clinical health records—and that can be seen in the lack of standardized data flowing from the local and state levels to federal agencies. Without standardized data sharing between state and county health departments to HHS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), comparing information across jurisdictions or forecasting emerging issues becomes difficult. When agencies prioritize and invest in standardized data infrastructure, they gain real-time data and modeling—the kind of insight that could flag a shortage like personal protective equipment early enough to plan instead of scramble.

Build resilience into cybersecurity and continuity planning

Advanced cybersecurity is a non-negotiable when it comes to operational readiness for public health. I've seen what happens when digital systems fail due to cyber attacks. One example of an attack on a blood bank provider stands out in particular. The provider was forced to revert to manual testing, labeling, and transport, disrupting roughly 250 hospitals. The ripple effects can be devastating for patient safety, disrupting time-sensitive surgeries and other critical care. So there’s a real imperative to safeguard surveillance, lab, clinical, and logistics systems with Zero Trust practices including active threat hunting. Redundant, geographically distributed systems and regular tabletop exercises, so every team knows the fallback process when systems go down are crucial as well.

Reward experimentation, not just compliance

Readiness comes with a need to rapidly iterate and test new tools in controlled pilots before scaling them nationally. That calls on leadership to make room for experimentation, giving teams room to be wrong along the way, iterate, and find what truly drives public health outcomes. I'm seeing more agencies build learning communities now than earlier in my career, and that cultural shift—paired with public-private partnership across government, industry, and nonprofits—is what will empower health agencies to meet the moment in a world that's only moving faster.