Below is more information about the agency, including who leads it, how many staff members the department employs and what the department does as a whole.
FAST FACTS
Budget: The 2023 budget bill appropriated $3.9 billion total for the department for FY 2024, with an estimated IT budget of about $116 million, according to the Center for Digital Government.*
Leadership: Christopher Veal, CIO
Staff: 12,870
MORE ABOUT THE AGENCY
According the DOH website, the department was established by the Florida Legislature in 1996. Resources for the 67 CHDs are provided through partnerships with local county governments. There are a total of 255 county health department sites throughout the state. DOH is accountable to the Florida Legislature, the Executive Office of the Governor, all residents and visitors in the state and the federal government.
As for technology, the 2023-2024 Legislative Budget Request (LBR) seeks $6.7 million to proceed with a network structure modification project. DOH has 270-plus IT applications. For these applications to run smoothly throughout the state, a network structure modification has been requested to allow the various state data centers, public clouds, vendor data centers and county health departments to communicate more effectively.
The LBR lists the following line items regarding the network structure modification project:
- Network Hardware: $1,200,000
- Software Defined Network: $950,000
- Network Security (ZTNA/SASE): $3,500,000
- Managed Network Services: $1,000,000
- An outsourced networking model that would provide regular hardware replacement and network management
- A cloud-enabled network that would implement a Secure Access Services Edge (SASE) architecture and Zero Trust Networking Architecture (ZTNA) providing protection against cybersecurity threats
- A vendor-supported network built to easily scale up and down network speeds on demand
*The Center for Digital Government is a division of e.Republic, which is the parent company of Industry Insider — Florida.
