Virginia forms digital service office, appoints former federal Medicare leader as new director
Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger announced Tuesday the formation of the Virginia Digital Service, a new in-house digital services team that will be led by Andrea Fletcher, the former chief digital strategy officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
The Virginia Digital Service will staff engineers, designers and technical experts to improve state websites and systems, state officials said. The team is tasked with ensuring technology is being used effectively, and taxpayer dollars are being spent efficiently by “preventing bad state contracts.”
The digital service team will also be deployed to help address the impacts of federal cuts, including those to health care coverage and federal benefits, such as SNAP.
Spanberger originally proposed the creation of a state digital services team this summer and included funding for it in an amendment to Virginia’s most recent budget. The need for an in-house team intensified last month after Spanberger claimed that Virginia’s Department of Social Services lost $52 million on a failed IT project to overhaul the state’s outdated child support enforcement system under former Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
“State government should work for the people it serves — and that means making sure Virginians can access the services they need quickly, easily, and reliably,” Spanberger said. “I am excited to appoint Andrea Fletcher to serve Virginians in this new position. Under her leadership, the Virginia Digital Service will bring together expert technical talent to modernize state systems, improve government websites, and speed up the delivery of the services that families rely on every day.”
Fletcher previously led the CMS Digital Service team as its first chief digital strategy officer. In the role, she helped to build the first Open Source Program Office in the federal government. She joined the public sector in 2021 in a role with the U.S. Digital Service, and state officials touted her experience in federal health IT policy, AI governance, and global health systems work in more than 20 countries, which included supporting digital health systems for public health responses to COVID-19, Ebola, and HIV.
“Virginians should have an expectation that government services be intuitive and easy to use,” Fletcher said. “I’m excited to help deliver on that goal for the people of the Commonwealth and demonstrate that government can build great technology.”
