Operationalizing Healthcare Through HHS Missiondriven Analysis and Functional Categorization for a Governable Systems of Systems

The U.S. healthcare system exemplifies a Collaborative System of Systems (SoS), composed of autonomous yet interdependent entities whose loosely coordinated operations contribute to persistent fragmentation and inefficiencies. This paper introduces a governanceoriented, MBSE approach to structurally and operationally represent the healthcare system as a governable SoS. Anchored in an operational interpretation of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mission, this work exposes the systemic interdependencies and coordination demands that current fragmented structures fail to address. To that end, we decompose the system into six functionally distinct categories - Suppliers, Providers, Care Recipients, Insurance, Information and Communication Technologies (Info Com Tech), and Medical Support Services - each governed by an external Governance Entity. Leveraging SysML, a Block Definition Diagram (BDD) captures the system's architectural decomposition, while an Internal Block Diagram (IBD) formalizes operational interactions through regulatory, financial, clinical, and informational exchanges. This duallayered modeling approach provides multiple analytical gains: it enables traceability of interdependencies, supports interfacelevel reasoning, and creates a foundation for simulation, compliance monitoring, and policy intervention. It exposes the system's critical points of coordination, asymmetry, and governance leverage, thus transforming a fragmented network of interactions into a governable socio-technical architecture. The results provide a systematic foundation for advancing healthcare governance from ad hoc oversight toward architecture-driven coordination, establishing the groundwork for future developments in system simulation, evidence-based policy design, and strategic integration initiatives across the healthcare ecosystem.