Tennessee and Connecticut Are Transforming Procurement and Grant Management Systems

September 09, 2025 | Melissa Touma

Behind every public health initiative — whether it’s expanding rural care, funding local clinics, or responding to emergencies — there’s a complex system working to move contracts, track spending, and ensure accountability. For many health departments across the country, CDC’s Public Health Infrastructure Grant (PHIG) is a critical resource to modernize these foundational systems that power public health. In Tennessee and Connecticut, this investment is already paying off. With new tools, smarter workflows, and a focus on transparency, both states are transforming how they manage procurement and grants. As a result, they’re delivering faster, more reliable services to the communities that need them most.

Tennessee Department of Health

In Tennessee, innovation took root through a homegrown solution: the Contract Tracking and Reporting Application (CTRAC). The Tennessee Department of Health’s (TDH’s) Operations Analysis Office and Procurement Management Office built CTRAC using Caspio, a low-code platform that allowed the team to design a fully customized application without extensive programming. What began as a manual, email-based process using internal contract processing worksheets is now a fully automated, digital workflow. CTRAC streamlines how TDH initiates, reviews, and tracks contracts, making procurement more efficient and transparent.

The system automates the collection of all required documentation for procurement processing, enforces validation rules to ensure data quality, and provides comprehensive reporting capabilities that meet CDC’s PHIG performance measures. It has also been expanded to support Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act reporting and invoice management, making it a central hub for multiple financial and administrative functions. Additionally, CTRAC integrates critical control mechanisms that strengthen financial compliance and oversight:

• Budget review and monitoring tools ensure that funding sources are correctly cited and aligned with contract terms.
• Fiscal review processes, which are embedded into the workflow, reduce the risk of errors and improve compliance with federal and state regulations.
• Automated data capture reduces human error and ensures timely, consistent entries.
• Monthly audits and validation checks maintain data integrity and support continuous improvement.

PHIG funding offset TDH’s initial Caspio costs, covering the expenses that supported procurement timeliness improvements. It also enabled the development of internal dashboards that track processing times at key stages. These visual tools improved communication with stakeholders across the department and supported efficient, data-driven decision-making. In parallel, TDH enhanced several Caspio user interfaces to streamline navigation and improve the overall user experience for staff.

In addition, PHIG funding supported the expansion of CTRAC to manage post-award grant functions for 22 grantees as part of the Rural Healthcare Resiliency Program project, including tools for electronic reimbursement submissions, real-time budget tracking, and status updates.

Connecticut Department of Public Health

For the Connecticut Department of Public Health (CTDPH), PHIG funding has been vital to advancing a more transparent, efficient, and data-informed grants and procurement ecosystem. At the core of this transformative effort is a new, agency-wide grants management system, developed using Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power BI. PHIG’s support enabled CTDPH to hire a dedicated data engineer to design and implement the system’s foundational database, an essential technical capability that underpins the success and sustainability of the initiative.

This integrated platform streamlines workflows and enhances accountability and tracking across the grant and procurement lifecycle. By centralizing data and automating reporting, CTDPH can now:

• Track procurement and contract status in real time, reducing delays and improving responsiveness.
• Ensure compliance with federal and state requirements through built-in validation and audit trails.
• Generate dynamic dashboards that provide leadership with actionable insights into spending, timelines, and bottlenecks.
• Standardize documentation and approvals, reducing variability and increasing transparency across departments.

To further strengthen and sustain these improvements, CTDPH is establishing a centralized procurement support team that guides program staff through the often-complex procurement process — ensuring consistency, reducing redundancy, and ultimately improving the speed and quality of contract execution. For health program staff in the agency, this system transformation means less time navigating administrative hurdles and delays, and more time focusing on public health outcomes.

Another key focus area for CTDPH is procurement timeliness, an important component of achieving public health goals. CTDPH reported a median procurement cycle time of 137 days in PHIG Reporting Period 4 and set a target to reduce this to 80 days. This commitment aligns with PHIG’s broader goal of improving foundational capabilities and reflects CTDPH’s proactive approach to building a more agile and accountable public health infrastructure.

Conclusion

Both Tennessee and Connecticut exemplify how PHIG funding can catalyze meaningful change in procurement and grants management. Whether through custom-built platforms like CTRAC or enterprise-grade systems like Dynamics 365 and Power BI, these states are laying the groundwork for more efficient, transparent, and accountable public health operations. As PHIG continues to support foundational improvements, Tennessee and Connecticut’s successes offer a roadmap for other states seeking to modernize their systems and accelerate public health impact. Next, learn about best practices and strategies for procurement PHIG peers are implementing.