Leadership:
While the Inspector General authorizes all matters pertaining to the eight regional offices, the day-to-day operations and procedures of the individual regional offices are administrated by the RIG. The RIG supervises the audit managers in his region, sometimes among two or three remote field offices. As a typical example, Federal
Region II comprises New York, New Jersey, and Puerto Rico. The Region II HHS-OIG-
OAS offices include a regional headquarters in New York City, a field office in Albany,
New York, and a field office in San Juan Puerto Rico (HHS.gov, 2006).
The Region II RIG maintains communications with all three OAS offices under his direction, primarily through meetings and correspondence with his audit managers in those offices. The audit managers provide operational leadership to their respective audit teams. Within each audit group forming each audit team, senior auditors supervise and assist junior auditors on an informal basis, both on the audit site and also during the many month-long process of analyzing the audit data and drafting findings into a report for review by the manager, and subsequently, by the RIG.
Control:
Technically, the HHS Inspector General and Deputy Inspector General maintain control of all operations of all four HHS-OIG...
On an operational level, a different Regional Inspector General directs each regional component of every regional office and any satellite field offices.
On a day-to-day basis, the RIGs delegate operational responsibility to regional managers for the investigations, evaluations, analyses, and audits conducted by the OI,
OEI, OCIG, and OAS components, respectively. Managers assign and supervise specific projects to teams of criminal investigators, evaluators, attorneys and auditors within their regional offices and field offices. Within OIG-OAS, supervisory auditors monitor specific audit issues and report tentative findings and any operational difficulties to the audit manager, while also assisting junior auditors interview personnel at each audit site.
Upon the audit's conclusion, the senior and supervisory auditors assist junior auditors analyze data and draft their respective portions of the draft report eventually submitted for review by the RIG.
References
Nowalinski, G. (2001)
Brief History of the HHS Office of Inspector General
USDHHS Office of Inspections and Evaluations: Washington, DC.
U.S. Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General Public Website, Accessed September 24, 2007, at http://oig.hhs.gov/organization/OAS/index.html
