Government Technology - January 2009 - (Page ca4)

“Clarity gives us easier access to information and more consistent information.” — Kamal Bherwani, CIO, Health and Human Services, New York City agencies and CBOs, so they can access comprehensive information about their clients, with access tailored to users’ roles and rights. The broad initiative also includes many smaller projects. For example, HHS must convert paper forms to an electronic format and develop a central framework for authentication and identity management. Among other innovations, it plans to create mobile applications on portable devices for field workers and implement selfservice kiosks for clients. It All Has to Tie Together “It’s an expansive project because it hits the client directly and it hits the agencies,” said Bherwani, who serves as executive director of HHS-Connect. Implementing and integrating this constellation of systems requires a tremendous amount of coordination. “All of this has to tie together in one big fabric at once. The phasing, the dependencies — all the pieces that have to fall in place over time to build out our enterprise architecture for this project — become very complex.” In the past, HHS used a variety of manual procedures and nonintegrated IT solutions to manage projects and portfolios of projects. That approach wasn’t up to the challenge posed by HHS-Connect. “You couldn’t get the big picture. And you couldn’t see the way things correlated with one another,” Bherwani said. Nor did those solutions offer a reporting capability that enabled visibility into projects tailored to the needs of different viewers — high-level overviews for portfolio managers and executives, and detailed status reports for project managers. Only an integrated PPM solution provides the tools that keep a program of this magnitude on track, Bherwani said. “As you handle multiple projects in flight, you need to figure out how they correlate with one another, and you need to be able to present all the answers in a status report across a portfolio of projects.” To meet these needs, New York chose CA Clarity™ Project and Portfolio Management solution. “Clarity gives us easier access to information and more consistent information,” he said. Although it will take three to four years to fully develop HHS-Connect, by the end of 2009, program managers expect to have several pieces of the system up and running, such as a common client index, a document image management system and the worker portal. “Our quick wins will help build our long-term strategy and show the value of the platform we’re building,” Bherwani said. In the long run, HHS-Connect will make agencies more efficient, saving them money. Also, as clients gain the ability to conduct more transactions online, case workers will spend less time on routine procedures, leaving them free to focus on tasks that create greater value. Also, as agencies start sharing data about clients they serve in common, that information will help them refine their policies and programs. ”We’ll have a better idea of the correlation and the impact of different services as we deliver them to the client,” Bherwani said. New York City’s various HHS agencies serve largely the same population but without linking the data, it’s impossible to know where the overlaps occur, Bherwani said. “If you can’t uniquely identify the client, you can’t give the best services possible, because you don’t know all the facts.” HHS-Connect will provide those facts, helping New York City’s health and human services agencies to address citizen’s needs holistically. That is the most effective strategy, Bherwani said. “In many cases, it takes a multiprong approach to make a difference in the lives of the people we serve.” ❖ 4 ADVERTISING SUPPLEMENT

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Government Technology - January 2009

Government Technology - January 2009 Contents Point of View On the Scene Big Picture Four Questions for... Stemming the Retirement Tide Getting the Picture Fact of Matter Money Trail Rays the Roof Trick or Tweet? The Modern Way to Vote Products signal:noise

Government Technology - January 2009

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