Ruthlessly Strategic!

Two poignant words – ruthlessly strategic – echoed across the walls of the Glass Pavilion at Johns Hopkins University as Jessica Kahn delivered an impassioned challenge to participants during the closing panel of the 8th Annual Stewards of Change Symposium.  Participants got it.  They understand that now is the time to act – with courage, passion, data, results and most importantly strategic focus to get critical initiatives started.

Tweeting the 2013 SOC Symposium

Excitement is building in the week leading up to the 8th Annual National Stewards of Change Symposium (June 10-12,  in partnership with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, MD).  Enrollment is at capacity, with public sector, private industry, and non-profit thought leaders and early innovators from across the country.  This year’s line-up of speakers is sure to provoke thought and inspire action. 

New England Consortium Convenes Information Sharing Symposium to Link Health and Human Services

Since 1999 Health and Human services leaders in New England have been partnering to leverage each other’s service improvements and cost containment initiatives. In 2011 those collaborative relationships resulted in the award ofa CMS funded Early Innovator grant to the region (www.NESCIES.org) to test the concepts of reusability in building state-based health insurance exchanges.  In the midst, CMS made available funding for states to build and enhance their Medicaid eligibility systems, and HHS leaders quickly realized the many new opportunities and challenges to a changing health and human services world.  Concepts of integration and interoperability between and among state programs go far beyond technology. It also means rethinking structures and policies, and the use of resources including the state workforce. 

GAO Report on Human Services: Sustained and Coordinated Efforts Could Facilitate Data Sharing While Protecting Privacy

On February 21, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), released a report on the state of data sharing and exchange in state and local government human services agencies and programs.  The report, which is titled Human Services:  Sustained and Coordinated Efforts Could Facilitate Data Sharing While Protecting Privacy,  provides a review of steps the federal government and some states and localities have taken to “provide more seamless and standardized data exchange promote greater interoperability across health and human services programs.” 

The research identifies promising technologies and practices that can allow for further improvements in access to critical case information for those who need it.  The report finds that even with technology capable of sharing data, state and local agencies “may be stymied by uncertainties regarding what can or cannot be shared consistent with the myriad of privacy laws and requirements that affect the delivery of human services.”

7th Annual SOC Symposium Discussion of Recommendations With Federal Partners

On October 9th a small group of attendees from the 7th Annual Stewards of Change Symposium discussed key findings and recommendations with federal leaders from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight and Food and Nutritional Services.  Over the past three months many participants contributed to the review and preparation of the presentation that included these findings and recommendations.

Reaching Across Boundaries

Even within an organization that might think of itself as an enterprise, such as a police department or a hospital, there are impediments to open communications and information sharing.   Tightly knit communities of interest within enterprises are generally regarded as places where information is freely and openly shared in order for the members of such communities to get their respective jobs done and perform well as a team.  But trying to create a path for such exchanges between communities of interest has been the challenge that most complicates our general thirst for better information sharing.  Particularly when there are conflicts in objectives or purpose that are either real or perceived, walls go up and information sharing gets blocked. 

Interoperability At The Tipping Point

Whatever you call it – a tipping point, a paradigm shift, an inflection point - we are on the verge of a fundamental shift in the way human services are designed, built and delivered across America.  Of course it is not by chance, but rather the dividend of a tremendous investment of energy, devotion, creativity and courage by many people who have worked tirelessly to challenge the norms and create the conditions necessary to enable change to happen.