Case Study 3 Client Type: State Government

Description

The Executive Office of Health And Human Services (EOHHS) is the largest secretariat in the State with 24,000 employees across 17 individual agencies and a $13.5 billion annual budget, servicing 3 million people.

• Dept. Of Social Services

• Office of Child Care Service

• Dept. Of Transitional Assistance

• Office Of Medicaid

• Dept. Of Youth Services

• Dept. of Mental Retardation

• Dept. Of Public Health

• Dept. Of Veteran Services

• Rehabilitation Commission

• Commission for the Blind

• Health Care Finance & Policy

• Comm. for Deaf & Hard of Hearing

• Dept. of Elder Affairs

• Chelsea Soldiers’ Home

• Office of Refugees and Immigrants

• Dept. Of Mental Health

• Holyoke Soldiers’ Home

Approach

This large-scale four-phased project involved the transformation of manual paper-based procedures into agency-specific processes that were automated, integrated, productive, and measurable. This multi-phased transformation reduced and eliminated repetitive administrative tasks, so employees had more time to focus on health & human services to more citizens. This project involved:

• Defining and implementing data collection and analysis requirements

• Interviewing subject matter experts and key stakeholders at multiple agencies

• Developing an enterprise framework to facilitate the transformation

• Establishing process control gates (for workflow governance) to ensure regulatory compliance with state and federal laws (and internal policies)

• Performing gap analysis between the status-quo and desired outcomes

• Establishing and meeting project timelines, milestones, and leading project management

• Formulation and delivery of training and communication materials

Results

Results from this project included:

• Increased productivity by 45%

• Increased leadership visibility and control using real-time workflow dashboards

• Significantly reduced errors and improved customer service

All project deliverables were achieved on time, on budget, and recognized state-wide.

The figure below illustrates one of the optimized processes used by 17 agencies, where we led the process improvement and change management effort affecting their employees, the processes, and the state-wide system.

Our firm also provided support and training to employees of EOHHS in process design, system configuration, and administration as well as end-user software training.

Project success was measured by the speed of adoption from each agency, increased governance and reporting, effectiveness communications to employees, cost savings, reduced hiring errors, and improved compliance.

Stakeholders and subject matter experts (employees) were engaged from the start of this project. Employees from all 17 agencies were involved throughout this transformation initiative. We listened and facilitated collaboration among every participant.

Compliance control gates were defined in collaboration with compliance officials, and we integrated the compliance controls into each recruiting process. Each compliance task was implemented simply and practically manner that did not burden any of the involved employees.

Deliverables

• Led visioning sessions with participants from all 17 agencies

• Defined data to be gathered and implemented data collection and analysis.

• Customized training materials

• User training classes

• Process maps that captured the current workflows at the start of the project

• Optimized process maps that identified opportunities for improvement

• Train the trainer documentation and classes

• Gap analyses that guided implementation

• Weekly project meetings with agency leaders, program managers, and the Chief Information Officer

• System functionality requirements

• Project management services to ensure achievement of timelines and milestones

• Interviewed key stakeholders and subject matter experts in each agency