“There’s no other burning priority, as far as I’m concerned, for the future of Washington, than getting these systems stabilized, modernized,” Emily Beck, deputy director of the Office of Financial Management and executive sponsor of the One Washington program, told state CIO Bill Kehoe in December.
The $776 million upgrade to the state’s financial system is years in the making, with the launch of its first phase now set for October 2027. The overhaul, which will involve administrative functions and processes like finance, procurement, human resources and budget, will move these systems to a cloud-based service. The modernization project is engaging with more than 40 agencies and affecting 250 systems, Kehoe said during comments on the Dec. 22 episode of his regular podcast, “Coffee with Kehoe.”
The cohort model One Washington is moving to is a “much different structure than we had before,” he said.
Yes, One Washington is a technology modernization project, Beck said during the episode, but it’s also a governance structure project.
“It really isn’t a technology project,” she said. “It’s a business transformation project where technology is an important component.”
The project, with its enormous scope and reach, has not always stayed on course. It missed its “go live” in July “because we weren’t ready,” Kehoe said.
Some of the lessons learned involve being clear about the project’s mission and priorities, Beck said.
“If we don’t have crystal clear priorities, milestones, ways to measure what we’re doing and why we’re doing it, it’s going to mess up everything else,” she said, calling it imperative to stay “crystal clear on the mission.”
Another ongoing technology project in Washington is the Medicaid Transformation Project (MTP) 2.0, which involves improvements to the state’s Medicaid delivery and management system, as part of its commitment to “whole person care.”
The program will standardize data to make it more easily shared; smooth the interoperability among local, state and regional technology systems; and scale the work of regional “Community Care hubs,” which work closely with local organizations to connect residents with the health care and social services they need.
Beck described the One Washington modernization with its centralized networking and processes across multiple systems and departments as an all-encompassing doctor visit, rather than multiple individual appointments with specialists.
“So you don’t have to make 17 appointments,” she said.
“Once this state, as a whole, gets to experience the modernization that will happen when we’re successful … I am so excited about the day that all of that comes together,” Beck said. “To sit down at the job you’ve done for a while and have it be remarkably more effective, efficient, data-driven, that’s the moment.”
