CMS CIO to leave agency at end of month

Patrick Newbold, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ chief information officer, will leave the agency on Nov. 27, according to an email obtained by Nextgov/FCW. Newbold did not say where he is headed next.

“While leadership transitions are a natural part of any organization, our mission remains unchanged. The work we are doing to strengthen cybersecurity, modernize critical systems, responsibly advance AI, and deliver reliable technology services across CMS is too important to lose momentum,” he wrote in the message.

The message said Mark Plaugher will serve as acting CIO until the agency identifies a permanent successor. Plaugher began his detail to the CMS Office of Information Technology on Nov. 2, giving the agency weeks for a seamless transition, the email added.

CMS’ latest organization chart reflects Plaugher’s new role.

Plaugher has over 15 years of CMS experience and has served in various information technology-related roles, according to his LinkedIn profile. 

The Office of Information Technology shake-up comes shortly after Brian Peltier became the office’s deputy director following more than two decades of service at the Social Security Administration. It also comes shortly after Shauntia Bell became the director of CMS’ Enterprise Systems Solutions Group.

Federal News Network first reported on Newbold’s departure.

Newbold will leave CMS after two years at the agency and more than seven years of public service, according to his LinkedIn profile.

At CMS, he oversaw numerous modernization efforts, including the deployment of a multi-cloud environment and the integration of artificial intelligence tools into the workforce.

CMS became a hybrid, multi-cloud organization, meaning the agency can choose the cloud service provider that is the best fit for each agency mission, Newbold posted on LinkedIn three months ago. 

Newbold has said roughly 80% of CMS employees and contractors use AI weekly and have access to 100 ready-to-use AI assistants, MeriTalk reported in February. But Newbold has also stressed that AI outcomes, rather than just uptake, are key to CMS’ strategy.

“Instead of leading with AI, we're going back and leading with outcomes,” he said at the GovCIO Media & Research Health IT Summit in September.

In one example, he said CMS wants to reduce its onboarding time frame from 60 days to 15 days, and that he was also thinking about how AI could reinvent processes to achieve that goal.

Newbold said on LinkedIn that CMS became the first agency to take advantage of the General Services Administration’s OneGov initiative. In the post, he noted that CMS negotiated additional cloud discounts with its reseller, extending first-year savings and helping the agency create greater predictability in long-term cloud spending.

Newbold oversaw $850 million in IT savings within months and drove $101 million in Medicare recoveries through advanced data analytics, according to his LinkedIn.

“Together, we have navigated complex challenges, strengthened our technology foundation, accelerated innovation, and demonstrated what is possible when talented people come together around a shared mission,” Newbold wrote in the email.

Before joining CMS, Newbold served as CIO at the Social Security Administration, global deputy CIO at NASA and deputy CIO at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.