Published GAO findings supply the baseline questions. NIH is part of HHS; OVW is part of DOJ. Counts retain each report’s period and scope. These observations do not establish a national cost or measured savings from iCARE.
GAO found that up to 16 to 18 percent of NIH-funded clinical trials were registered late in ClinicalTrials.gov in fiscal years 2019–2022.
Period: FY 2019–2022. GAO states a range of up to 16–18 percent; 18 is the upper reported value, not an all-year rate.
iCARE measurement: Link award and trial identifiers; measure registration timeliness by fiscal year.
GAO-23-105656 · GAO source ↗GAO reported that NIH obligated $28 billion for clinical trials and related activities during fiscal years 2017–2021. This is an expenditure baseline, not waste or a cost attributable to data gaps.
Period: FY 2017–2021. Five-year NIH obligation total. Do not annualize it or treat it as a cost of inaction.
iCARE measurement: Link funding, trial registration, reporting status, and outcomes without treating all spending as avoidable.
GAO-23-105656 · GAO source ↗GAO identified 36 non-OAA federal programs overlapping with Older Americans Act funded services across nine departments and agencies. GAO found overlap, not duplication, and noted complementary services.
Period: GAO 2025 analysis. Do not equate program overlap with waste, failed programs, or financial loss.
iCARE measurement: Map program eligibility, referrals, and documented interagency coordination with distinct populations and goals.
GAO-25-107020 · GAO source ↗GAO identified challenges in coordination and communication between HUD Continuum of Care and HHS Runaway and Homeless Youth programs and made 10 recommendations across the relevant agencies.
Period: 2021 report. Recommendations are not a count of failed programs. Some agency actions and statuses changed after publication.
iCARE measurement: Track cross-program handoffs and eligibility information, with report status and dates.
GAO-21-540 · GAO source ↗GAO could not replicate HUD's data usability determinations for shelter-use estimates; HUD had not defined which data-quality issues made Continuum of Care submissions unusable.
Period: FY 2021–2022 data reviewed. About 400 is the universe described by GAO, not a count of deficient submissions. Do not infer dollar loss.
iCARE measurement: Record data-quality flags, exclusion decisions, rationale, and reproducible transformations.
GAO-26-107502 · GAO source ↗JustGrants served DOJ's three grantmaking components, including OVW. GAO reported approximately 56,000 external-user help desk inquiries in FY 2021 and nearly 10,000 in the first four weeks after launch.
Period: FY 2021. DOJ-wide count; GAO did not isolate OVW's share. This is not an OVW-only statistic or monetized loss.
iCARE measurement: If authorized, segment OVW inquiries, reporting obstacles, resolution times, and grantee handoffs.
GAO-24-106501 · GAO source ↗The target is incremental federal cost from documented coordination gaps across four distinct pathways—not total appropriations or the value of every service. Define the study window, event classes, and exclusions before calculating.
N = eligible events; g = measured share with a specified gap; c = incremental federal cost per gap event; a = causally avoidable share under the iCARE + TRACER + B.E.A.T. comparison. T ends December 31, 2027. Expected value requires a documented joint distribution or validated estimates, not multiplication of unrelated GAO figures.
Current combined result: Not estimable from the published GAO findings alone. A blank dollar figure is not a $0 loss. The 90-day GAO–SSE research engagement would obtain authorized source records, unit costs, comparison data, and uncertainty ranges. Any net benefit would subtract acquisition, integration, licensing, and operating costs.