We, at the FDA Innovation Lab collaborate effectively with experienced professionals, seasoned subject matter experts, and budding technologists to cultivate a culture of innovation. Our focus areas include Cloud Services, Mobility, High Performance Computing, Data Analytics and Social Computing. We are always looking to research and test out challenging ideas that can foster innovation throughout FDA. In support of FDAs mission we are committed to deliver high quality results that are critical to enhance the technological capability of the FDA’s scientific community.

 

Since its Grand Opening in April 2015, the FDA Innovation Lab has been the champion for change at the FDA.  The lab has facilitated collaborative efforts across the FDA, Federal Government, and private sector to help build a more inclusive and out-the-box approach to doing business.  By exploring new technologies, we are committed to help FDA grow forward in applying practices that allow for advancements in healthcare.

The Innovation Lab is a one-stop shop for any innovative events, a hub for emerging technologies and a go-to point for testing new devices and software within FDA. Innovation at the FDA Office of Innovation is governed by the following principles:

Agency Mission-Extensive collaboration with stakeholders to comprehend mission requirements and ensure technology assessments are driven by functional performance criteria aligned to health, scientific and/or regulatory objectives.

Agile Methodology-An Iterative approach for developing, testing, and evaluating technologies within a short span of time. This practice focuses on creating a rapid feedback loop with the stakeholders, supplying comprehensive requirements to technologists and quickly transforming ideas into robust solutions. The resulting products and services are sustained by continuous integration, automated testing, and automated deployment.

Data Driven Strategy- In an ever-changing world, the sphere of knowledge surrounding public health is ever-expanding. Addressing the challenge to keep pace, the FDA has rejected passively absorbing a growing bubble of information, instead, taking the initiative to champion a sense of urgency for change. The approach proactively puts data at the apex of development goals, harnessing it to fuel innovation, improving the user experience, improving the usefulness of the products and services and delivering business insights to meet the FDA mission.

Infrastructure As Code (IAC) Architecture- As the Enterprise moves towards more virtualized and abstracted cloud based environments, architectures must adapt to new styles of usage. This necessitates the capacity for physical, virtual, and container-based workloads to be continually aggregated, disaggregated, and re-aggregated to support the needs of newer applications and services. The IAC Architecture provides a modularized infrastructure exposed as a set of flexible building blocks that can be assembled and re-assembled on demand to meet changing needs.

These guidelines assist the Office of Innovation in improving operational efficiencies and deploying comprehensive solutions to achieve greater agility and scalability, increasing speed, productivity and compatibility.