Service to America Medal Finalists: The Top Public Servants in the Sciences

• By Lara Shane
• September 23, 2013
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Federal civil servants throughout the government are continually making important scientific breakthroughs and working to improve the quality of our environment.

On October 3, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service will present the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medal for Science and Environment to one of the five finalists who have excelled in these fields. The finalists profiled below helped develop a new coronary stent, advanced drug addiction science, curbed greenhouse gas emissions at federal facilities, used genomics to radically transform the way hospital-acquired infections are identified and halted, and led NASA’s landing of a space vehicle on Mars.

These public servants are among 31 finalists honored in seven categories ranging from citizen services to homeland security and law enforcement. Here are the stories of the Service to America Medal finalists for the science and environment category.

Julie Segre, Tara Palmore and team: NIH team used genomics to track and halt deadly hospital-acquired infections

During a nerve-racking 12-month period in 2011 and 2012, a rare, deadly strain of bacteria that was resistant to nearly all antibiotics was spreading through the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center, the nation’s premier research hospital.

Every effort to halt ...

How VA is Making Progress in Reducing the Benefits Backlog

• By John Kamensky
• September 19, 2013
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The Department of Veterans Affairs has been in the crosshairs of critics for delays in approving benefits for deserving veterans.  Recent reports suggest that VA has turned the corner and is reducing its backlog.  One factor:  greater collaboration with veterans service organizations.

In May, the VA announced a partnership with two veterans service organizations --  the Disabled American Veterans and The American Legion -- to reduce the backlog of claims for veterans benefits by encouraging the filing of “fully developed claims.”  Such claims can be expedited in half the time it takes to process a regular claim.

The VA’s use of collaboration with veterans outreach organizations reflects a broader trend in government to partner with non-profits and others to navigate the complex requirements of various federal benefit programs, such as Medicaid, Social Security Disability, Supplemental Security Income, and the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps).

In the case of the VA, a new report for the IBM Center by Drs. Lael Keiser and Susan Miller concludes that collaboration is seen as useful and it is growing, at the front lines in the VA’s regional benefit determination offices around the country.  They found that: “Effective collaboration between government agencies ...

4 Things Every Government Communicator Should Know

• By Scott Burns
• September 19, 2013
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The foundation of successful government communications has always been the ability to effectively share information, provide solutions, and reach citizens and stakeholders with information they want and need. In the past, communicators honed the skills needed to organize interviews, create press releases, send correspondence and provide information for radio or TV. But in a digital era, with email, text messaging and social media at the core of how we communicate, government communicators are finding they need to keep up with a faster pace of information and adapt to a constantly growing and changing landscape of tools and platforms.

In working with more than 1,000 public sector organizations of all levels worldwide, we’ve partnered with countless government communicators. Through those experiences, we’ve seen the most successful government communicators employ strategies and tactics necessary to reach and spark conversations with citizens, subscribers, friends and fans on an ever-increasing number of platforms. We thought we’d share some essential strategies and tactics that today’s government communicator can use to create meaningful connections on digital platforms.

1. Provide Specific, Customizable Topics

If you’re anything like our clients, you’re creating a lot of content. You’re constantly updating web ...

What You Can Learn from Public/Private Partnerships

• By Chuck Brooks
• September 18, 2013
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The Internet was invented in a government laboratory, but it was the corporate vision that had it commercialized and institutionalized. It’s a great example of how the public and private sectors can work as partners in innovation, and advance a new era of social and technological change.

The best part: Both sides win.

These types of partnerships can fail as spectacularly as they succeed. But to make a partnership successful and work faster, smarter and better, a few things have to happen. These can also be applied outside of the public/private space.

Collaborate

Stakeholders will simplify operations if they share information. Administrative complexity and technological redundancy can be your biggest bugaboos. For example, when government and private stakeholders share information – and risk – the resulting innovation can benefit key areas that include homeland/national security, health and human services, energy, public safety and transportation.

Share Best Practices

Don’t reinvent the wheel. For public/private projects, private sector companies offer a playbook for successful innovation through lessons-learned and best practices. They can balance costs and benefits — a skill learned from the necessity of competitive markets where budgets are connected to solutions. Government agencies can tap this experience to identify ...

What is the Future of the Postal Service?

• By Ross Gianfortune
• September 17, 2013
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As of this week, the United States Postal Service began sending early retirement offers to more than 15,000 employees. The move is part of a plan by Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe to reduce the postal workforces without layoffs.

Government Executive correspondent Eric Katz says this is one of the ways Donahoe is trying to stop the proverbial bleeding from the agency that lost nearly $16.9 billion in 2012. Despite being "largely handcuffed by Congress," Katz says, Donahoe has tried to be creative.

"Largely, he's been getting his fair share of credit for doing a lot of steps that were under his power," Katz said about Donahoe.

USPS is trying to get creative in ways to mitigate the recent losses, including eliminating Saturday delivery and adding new package services. The numbers they project, however, are not concrete. Katz says the projections have taken a lot of criticism.

"When they said they would save $2 billion a year by cutting Saturday delivery, a lot of critics said, 'OK. How?' Katz said. "And they're like 'Uh, we have the numbers. Just trust us.'"

Despite the losses and the dire ...