You’ve heard about ObamaCare. Now get ready for TrumpCare.
With a change in administration, the Affordable Care Act will see an inevitable shift in direction. While no one knows for sure how President-elect Donald Trump will reshape ACA, one thing is certain: The historic health care law, which went into effect in March 2010, is in for a change.
If Gautam Ijoor has his way, his company, Alpha Omega Integration, will help deliver technical implementation that’s innovative, cost-effective—and fair.
“Regardless of what Donald Trump said during his political campaign, he may maintain some of the beneficial factors of ObamaCare,” says Gautam Ijoor, president and chief operating officer of the Vienna, Va.-based systems integrator.
“I think the key will be migration of data, analysis of data and big data analytics to drive decision-making on the Trump side – those are the pieces we would like to help implement.”
Ijoor has the benefit of the long view in helping make that happen.
A long-time industry veteran, Ijoor witnessed ObamaCare’s disastrous 2013 launch of HealthCare.gov.
At the time, Ijoor had resigned as the vice president of the company QSSI, an $85 million technology solutions and services contractor that had been called in to clean up technical mishaps following a leading systems integrator’s high-profile dismissal.
Since becoming president and COO of Alpha Omega this past September, Ijoor has taken valuable lessons learned from that experience—he worked on the procurement of the pre-contract award phase for QSSSI—and brought them to Alpha.
One of the biggest lessons: When an agency portal is built solely on a custom application, it can be difficult to change as policy requirements evolve.
“Today, most web applications on the federal side that interface with the general public are static,” says Ijoor, citing the Department of Education as another example. “The key to delivering value is to leverage big data analytics, which can be used to better understand your customer.”
As-a-service offerings are the means to deliver nimble results, Ijoor says. Or as he puts it, “building a customized platform that can be configured to support dynamic business rules.”
Alpha Omega’s recent acquisition efforts boost its capabilities on that front.
Since its founding in 2014, Alpha Omega has grown through two acquisitions: The first, of the D.C.-area systems integrator Znergies; and this last October, of Trusted Mission Solutions, an information technology and consulting services provider with a who’s-who of federal clients: the Federal Drug Administration, U.S. Census Bureau, State Department, Department of Labor, Health Resources and Services Administration, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Alpha’s experience in business management tools like Salesforce and Appian fuels cost savings for such agencies, says Ijoor. That’s something Ijoor is especially proud of.
“Whereas most companies would deliver the same mainframe services that have been in place for 25 or 30 years, we offer a path to migrate to a four-tier technology or business process management tool like Appian,” says Ijoor, who notes that Alpha doesn’t rest on its status as an economically disadvantaged, woman-owned small business.
“Ultimately, we show that the lifecycle of our solution is radically cheaper in the long run than continuing to do the same work that was done before by an incumbent contractor at a reduced cost,” says Ijoor.
Looking ahead, Ijoor sees a continued focus on as-a-service in delivering those results.
“On the services front, there are some specific types of contracts that we are looking at where you could get huge cost savings if you implemented a technical solution like as-a-service,” says Ijoor, citing Health and Human Services and DIA as two target customers.
Already, Alpha’s acquisition of Trust Mission Solutions provides the company a presence within DIA—specifically, with its participation on E-SITE, a multiple IDIQ contract vehicle that supports both classified and unclassified programs on multiple networks and security domains.
Maintaining a foothold in current agencies—and expanding into future ones—will take a continued focus on innovation. To aid in that effort, Alpha Omega recently established a six-person think tank.
“The main job of this think tank is to understand new technologies—new progressions made in the commercial, international IT market—and use those solutions to build something that is customized yet nimble for the federal space,” Ijoor says.
As ObamaCare gives way to TrumpCare, that may be exactly what federal clients—and the country—need now more than ever.
“The ‘repeal-and-replace’ strategy anticipated under the new administration can potentially lead to insurance marketplace chaos,” Ijoor says.
“In response,” Ijoor adds, “Alpha Omega will be ready to support rapid action to stabilize the market with software as-a-service and platform as-a-service implementations.”