Editor's note: Ben Harris is deputy secretary, operations and information technology for the Florida Department of Children and Families. Glenn Palmiere is information technology director for DCF.

When the Florida Department of Children and Families (DCF) created an information integration strategy to optimize service delivery to millions of clients statewide, the vision was clear: We wanted to integrate information from 59 applications running on various operating platforms into a composite portal that provides a single view of all relevant data about an individual client.

The IT initiative turning that vision into reality is ONEFamily.

The DCF, Florida's largest agency, serves the state's population with a variety of programs that provide care and support to Florida's most vulnerable citizens, including abused and neglected children, the elderly and disabled, the physically and mentally challenged, and the substance dependent.

Over the years, agency programs were implemented on hardware platforms ranging from IBM mainframes to PCs and data repositories, which included Microsoft SQL, Oracle, InterSystems Corp.'s Caché, IMS, DB2, Access and Visual FoxPro. This multiplatform, multidatabase infrastructure was probably inevitable, since agency programs are developed and implemented as a result of legislative directives.

Typically such legislation requires new programs be up and running on specific, extremely tight deadlines. This makes speed of program implementation a top priority, and reduces the time for assessing the current IT environment and long-term planning and decision-making to virtually zero. That's why finding products that can integrate disparate legacy applications with new technologies to address current and future challenges cost-effectively is a key part of the DCF's IT strategy.

Due to the department's complex and diverse processing environment, service providers were working with a series of disparate applications, with no common interface and no means of easily tying together all relevant information for each individual.

In some instances, the result could be unnecessary duplication or overlapping services. In other cases, individuals might not receive all appropriate services because care providers are unaware of all the circumstances of a given client. In the worst case, tragedy occurred. Rilya Wilson, a four-year-old placed with her grandmother by the DCF, was abducted in 2001 -- it was nearly 16 months before DCF caseworkers realized she disappeared.

The incident received national media coverage and prompted the Florida Senate to pass SB 1258, the legislative impetus behind ONEFamily.

After examining multiple integration technology solutions, the DCF decided to build ONEFamily on InterSystem Corp.'s Ensemble integration platform, because it provides access to information at the data and application layers, as well as Web Services -- whichever is most appropriate.

The multilayer access provides DCF developers with flexibility. Another benefit was Ensemble's power to connect multiple systems through a single interface quickly and seamlessly. A high-performance object database, RAD environment and support for sophisticated, yet fast and easy reporting in real-time mode were additional factors contributing to our technology choice.

By seamlessly integrating information in DCF's ONEFamily application series, the agency can ensure that clients receive the best possible service from their community-based providers.


Building a Single View
To begin the ONEFamily pilot, a three-person development team created a test bed, integrating information from five systems. The composite application was interactively prototyped with users and developers sitting in the same room, reviewing live screens and making changes on the fly.

An interactive bulletin board was set up, so pilot users could directly communicate with developers to voice their opinions and identify necessary changes. After a series of reviews, which included a presentation to Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the ONEFamily pilot went live 90 days after initiation. The single view of client data and ability to quickly create reports across multiple systems enables us to take a holistic approach to client care.