Tracking the Spend: Public Health’s Top IT Goods Purchases This Year

One of the state’s most recognizable public-facing health-care entities has been upgrading its slate of IT goods during the year’s early months.

The California Department of Public Health (CDPH) made 82 such purchases during January and February and spent $2,519,861.42 on its five most expensive buys of IT goods. Last year, CDPH made 77 IT goods purchases in January and February and spent more than twice as much on its five largest such buys: $7,085,343.73. Here’s more information, with rounding, on what the department spent:

• $635,000 with Enterprise Networking Solutions (ENS) for “PAN-XDR-ADV-EP: Cortex XDR Pro,” likely an installation of Palo Alto Networks’ detection and response app, with “30 days of data retention and standard success.” CDPH made the purchase Jan. 9. Fulcrum Technology Group, a global tech investor, purchased ENS and Taborda Solutions in August 2021.
• $616,000 with onPar Advisors for “FedRAMP enterprise meeting license with 500 capacity and Web 100 capability,” likely the purchase of one or more Zoom rooms which typically enable remote conference room-style meetings. These appear to be Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program (FedRAMP) certified. This is a roughly 18-month contract from Jan. 20-July 1, 2024.
• $516,000 with The StateStore, likely for offerings from technology company NWN Carousel including reporting and dashboard capabilities. This is a roughly two-year contract from Jan. 24-Feb. 3, 2025.
• $391,000 with Solutions Simplified for Zscaler’s Deception threat detection technology. CDPH made the purchase Jan. 31.
• $361,000 with Illumina for its NextSeq 2000 Sequencing System. CDPH made the purchase Feb. 24.
  

The periodic reports of spending on IT goods and services by agencies and departments in state government are compiled by Industry Insider — California as a way of highlighting procurements and trends.