IT for Health and Human Services: Citizen Expectations and Economic Challenges Drive Government Transformation

Jan 2009 , Sponsored by CA, Inc.

Technology has turned citizens into customers with high expectations. When they interact with government, citizens today require the same high quality of customer care they get from tech-savvy companies such as FedEx and Amazon.com. They want one-stop shopping: a single place on the Web where they can conduct a wide variety of transactions. They expect government employees to have at their fingertips all the information they need to solve constituents' problems and answer their questions regardless of the interoperability issues involved. They need agencies to climb out of their IT silos, pulling together to tackle the serious issues that challenge our communities. For example, schools, the juvenile justice system, family services agencies and substance abuse programs need to collaborate on the problem of substance abuse among teens.

Governments are under tremendous pressure to do more for citizens, and to do it better. At the same time, the recent financial crisis has forced state and local governments to cut budgets and freeze hiring. Public officials are left trying to accomplish more for constituents with fewer resources.

This poses a difficult challenge, of course. But for government CIOs, it also presents an opportunity to transform the way government delivers services. Nowhere is this transformation more crucial than in health and human services agencies, which address constituents' most basic needs to promote their wellbeing and self-sufficiency.

To meet these growing demands, government CIOs must find, evaluate and choose technologies that, when deployed wisely, will help produce a leaner, more agile government that exceeds its citizens' expectations. Several technologies that are used extensively in the private sector also offer the same kinds of advantages to governments.

Project and Portfolio Management: Helping Deliver Timely, Relevant Services
As stewards of public resources, IT managers must keep their projects on time and on budget and make sure they correctly align with agencies' business needs. When conducting multiple projects, they must carefully orchestrate their efforts, establish priorities, assign resources and keep stakeholders aware of their progress. In health and human services, for example, executives might simultaneously monitor projects involving health clinics, substance abuse treatment facilities, juvenile justice programs, homeless shelters, services for the aging and a great deal more.

Project and portfolio management (PPM ) tools help keep IT projects on track and ensure that government agencies get the greatest possible return on scarce resources.

Grants Management: A Life Cycle Approach
Without grants, state and local governments would find it impossible to conduct some of their most important programs. Managing the grant life cycle - from choosing which opportunities to pursue, to submitting a successful application, to conducting the program and reporting on the outcome - is a complex process.

A centralized grants management solution, based on proven PPM methodologies, automates the process, saving time and standardizing procedures. This helps governments pursue grants more efficiently and use the resulting funds more effectively.

Identity and Access Management: Securing Effective Collaboration
E-government services and Webbased collaboration are feasible only if the data at the heart of these applications stays secure. While protecting citizens' personal data and complying with federal regulations, governments still must make it easy for employees and citizens to use online applications.

An effective identity and access management (IAM) solution automates the administration of credentials and permissions - based on business rules and the roles of individual users - and also provides automated auditing. An effective IAM solution should be highly scalable and must be capable of operating across many platforms to ensure interoperability. Because it uses open interfaces, agencies can integrate it into their infrastructures without changing existing applications or systems.