Government Bits

Tracking how technology is transforming interaction between governments and citizens.

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As more parts of our lives “go digital”, the collection of data related to our transactions, interests, and other preferences continues to grow exponentially.

Many commercial enterprises have demonstrated that the ability to manage and even monetize such data provides a powerful competitive advantage. In fact, it’s that principle of Digital Marketing which allows for the delivery of unique personalized experiences for consumers online.  Our health data is no exception.

The health care industry has been criticized for being a laggard when it comes to tapping the wealth of information that’s often locked away in terabytes of stored data, both structured and unstructured, compounding with every insurance claim or provider interaction.  That’s changing, however, as innovative solutions that have modernized industries like travel, financial services, and others are gradually being leveraged throughout the healthcare ecosystem.
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Recently, at the Adobe-sponsored State Healthcare IT Connect Summit, I met with executives from state and federal agencies as well as leaders of private sector health organizations to explore the key role of IT in identifying trends, cutting costs, and saving lives.

Three recurring use cases for transforming this accumulating data into actionable knowledge emerged during our meetings:

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Dissecting the Decision

Yesterday, as the Supreme Court upheld the vast majority of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a couple caveats were highlighted in the court’s ruling. Regarding the mandate, most people understand the law is economically sustainable only if all citizens participate. The court established that the penalty to be paid by those citizens who refuse to acquire health insurance essentially amounts to a “tax.” Therefore, congress was within its constitutional rights to include such a mandate/tax/penalty in the law.  Although to some it may seem the Supreme Court’s ruling was based partly on semantics, ACA proponents declare it a victory since everyone was previously burdened with the shared costs of caring for the uninsured by way of increasing hospital charges and insurance premiums.

The court also ruled that expansion of Medicaid to offer more citizens health coverage may proceed, but without the ACA stipulation that US states that don’t comply would be denied matching federal funding for their original Medicaid programs. So states may now choose whether to participate in the federally-funded expansion.  Note:  the ACA already included a similar provision (Section 1332: Waiver for State Innovation) that allows for states to opt out so long as they offer citizens the same level of quality care at a cost that is equal to lesser than the ACA, but not until 2017.

Looking Ahead

As focus shifts from the law’s credibility to its timely implementation, Health IT will play a prominent role in the delivery of affordable care to more than 30 million new customers. Many provisions of the ACA rely heavily on IT to raise awareness, determine eligibility, manage payments, improve decision-making, measure quality, and more.
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I recently moderated a two-day conference on Government Health IT in Washington DC where Janet Marchibroda, Health IT Chair at the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), spoke on the topic.

To anyone passionate about applying technology to drive transformative change and improve the way we live, this week is shaping up to be a tough one to beat in the public sector. It’s been like receiving a gift-wrapped box of energy, laser focused on government innovation and modernization.

Yesterday, President Obama issued a memorandum to the heads of all US executive departments and agencies calling on them to leverage “technological advances to fundamentally change how they serve their customers.”  

The memo, entitled "Building a 21st Century Digital Government," goes on to explain:

“For far too long, the American people have been forced to navigate a labyrinth of information across different Government programs in order to find the services they need. In addition, at a time when Americans increasingly pay bills and buy tickets on mobile devices, Government services often are not optimized for smartphones or tablets, assuming the services are even available online.”

As a follow-up to Executive Order 13571 (Streamlining Service Delivery and Improving Customer Service) which he signed in April 2011, the president’s memo also announced the release of a new Government-wide strategy developed to accomplish the monumental goal of enabling “more efficient and coordinated digital service delivery” across all agencies.

Simultaneously, yesterday in New York City at TechCrunch Disrupt 2012, Steven Van Roekel (US Chief Information Officer) and Todd Park (US Chief Technology Officer), launched this landmark initiative to thousands of attendees excited to learn the details.

The comprehensive accompanying strategy, entitled “"Digital Government: Building a 21st Century Platform to Better Serve the American People", includes a 12-month road map that emphasizes three priority actions:

•  Encouraging agencies to deliver information in new ways that fully utilize the power and potential of mobile and web-based technologies
•  Ensuring the safe and secure delivery and use of digital services to protect information and privacy
•  Requiring all agencies to establish central online resources for outside developers, and to adopt new standards for making applicable Government information open and machine-readable by default

In today’s interconnected global economy, such leadership will likely provide a blueprint for similar international efforts as government enterprises worldwide mobilize to optimize efficiency and offer citizens digital experiences on par with those offered by their private sector counterparts.

To that end, we recently hosted the first annual Adobe Government Assembly (AGA) for Canada. The recent creation of Shared Services Canada, a new agency dedicated to optimizing service delivery, has brought new attention to efforts there to "improve the efficiency of IT services across the Canadian federal government and ensure value for taxpayers' dollars."

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Although most of us mindlessly take it for granted, Internet access in the US is by no means ubiquitous. However, the dynamic mainstream adoption of smart phones, tablets, and other mobile devices has helped to drive irrefutable progress among rural residents and underserved populations.

By literally placing the power of the web into the pockets of many citizens for the first time, mobile devices empower these segments with a surge of newfound access to unlimited information (cell tower coverage and data plans permitting).

However, a closer look reveals a new challenge, as mobile devices are often the only gateway to the Internet for many of these new users. Despite the significant advancements they represent, these devices will not realize their full potential until enterprises, like government agencies and other organizations, deliver consistent experiences for meaningful business processes and human services across these channels – from start to finish.

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I was recently invited to participate on a roundtable panel of thought leaders from government, business, and academia at the 2011 Annual Conference in Annapolis, hosted by the Maryland Legislative Black Caucus. Collectively, we explored a broad range of topics related to industries that are driving the state’s economy, namely biotech, cyber security, information technology, and healthcare. We agreed that these industries all intersect, in one way or another, as Maryland implements components of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), also known as Health Reform.

A primary goal of health reform is to improve overall status and quality of care by achieving health equity and eliminating disparities, particularly in the African American community.

Designed to reduce the estimated $60 billion spent annually on direct health care expenditures, in part due to existing disparities, PPACA aims to make health services more affordable and accessible for millions of Americans. However, successful implementation will require important tactical considerations, including educational outreach and local economic infrastructure, which are often muted by theoretical partisan debate.

In order for any government program to deliver valuable services, citizens must first know that they exist and understand the relative value. For example, as a result of PPACA, commercial health plans now cover many immunization and preventive services without charging a deductible, co-pay, or co-insurance. Included are wellness services like screenings for cardiovascular disease, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer, diabetes, and more.

Customer Communications has always been at the core of enterprise information strategies.  For organizations striving to capitalize on strengthened relationships with consumers, it would seem an added bonus that they may also streamline operational costs at the same time… if they do it right.

The proliferation of tablets and other mobile devices presents unique opportunities, and has caused many organizations to take a second look at how to satisfy their customers’ heightened expectations for immersive 24×7 interactions.

Besides, how much does it cost your agency to route traditional outbound correspondence and handle inbound inquiries received by postal mail or telephone?

The figures vary within each organization since factors like call volume and levels of service complexity need to be considered. But a conservative estimate of $5 -$10 per inquiry is generally applied across most industries. (hint: For complicated segments, like health benefits administration, that figure quickly escalates!)

Today, Adobe announced the new Adobe Digital Enterprise Platform for Customer Experience Management (CEM). Additionally, we introduced a new set of Customer Experience Solutions built on the platform. The news has particular relevance to Government in several respects.

We caught up with our own Rob Pinkerton, senior director of Product Marketing, to get his insights on the announcement and how and why it’s important for Government. Check out the video below.

Want to learn more? Visit Adobe’s corporate blog for a post and video from Rob Tarkoff, senior vice president of Digital Enterprise Solutions. And also swing over to the Experience Delivers blog to learn more about a Tweetaway our CEM colleagues are running the week of June 20.

We’re interested in your thoughts, comments and questions, of course. Leave a comment below or reach out to us on Twitter @AdobeGov or on our Facebook page. You can also keep in touch with our team focused on CEM on Twitter @AdobeCEM.

As we’ve posted about in the recent past, the Adobe Gov UK team has been holding a monthly webinar series focused on the public sector.

Recent webinars have focused on Delivering and Designing Intuitive Online Services and on ID and Authentication for Online Services.

The latest in this webinar series took place last week, on May 12, and was devoted to Simplifying Service Transactions & Business Processes. The event included a strong panel:

• Glyn Evans, Socitm President, Corporate Director of Business Change at Birmingham City Council and CIO Council member
• Peter Bole, Director of ICT at Kent County Council
• Alan Banks, Managing Director, Adobe UK
• Helen Olsen, Managing Editor, ITU and UKauthorITy

The group addressed that public services are moving inexorably online, and the UK population is becoming ever more digitally savvy. But how do we take advantage of the best in technology developments to meet the needs of both the organization and the citizens it serves? Efficiency is essential, but is agile development the key? Does new technology solve old problems and deliver joined up processes and services? Or does the public sector silo mentality block the holistic thinking needed for a step change in performance?

An on-demand version of the webinar is now available; you’ll find it here. It runs approx 45 minutes. We hope you’ll check it out.

The next in this series of webinars is scheduled for June 14 and will be focused on Collaborating for the Future – Joined up Thinking and Joined up Working. You can register here.

Have you ever researched a product or service at a particular website, and then bought it someplace else? Used a mobile device to compare the price of a product online while shopping in a store? Been influenced by the opinions of others in a social community when selecting a healthcare provider or learning more about ailing symptoms?

That list is just a small sample of behaviors that illustrate how customers are educating themselves beyond the information that traditional organizations are providing, and transforming the consumer lifecycle. When coupled with heightened expectations for personalized service after a commitment is established, this environment presents a unique opportunity. Leading enterprises understand the correlation between creating loyal customers and driving performance.

Conditioned by immersive digital experiences in the private sector, citizens now expect more from interactions with their government in the public sector as well. As a byproduct of powerful user-centric citizen experiences, government agencies have discovered they are also able to realize significant cost savings. For example, by making it easier for citizens to dispute inaccurate medical claims, Medicaid agencies could save millions of dollars annually by helping to reduce fraud.

Adobe’s “Experience Delivers” tour recently stopped in Washington DC where the focus was Customer Experience Management (CEM) in government (see the event video we created above, including our conversations with several of the speakers). Attendees from federal, state, and local agencies learned more about our CEM platform, and ways that it can be leveraged to build “brand” differentiation and improve citizen engagement across multiple channels.

Presenters from Adobe and our featured partners, Deloitte and SapientNitro, shared their perspectives and set the stage for CEM industry luminary speaker Bruce Temkin, Managing Partner of the Temkin Group, who articulated the measurable benefits of an effective CEM solution. Bruce further engaged the audience as he identified the following four competencies required to effectively leverage CEM in the enterprise.

1. Purposeful leadership
2. Compelling brand value
3. Employee engagement
4. Customer connectedness

Preliminary feedback from this event has been overwhelmingly positive. Other US cities in the Experience Delivers Tour include San Francisco, New York, and Chicago. European cities include London, Stockholm, Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels.

Here at Adobe, we’re passionate about CEM and very interested in your feedback and general thoughts. Is there an opportunity to improve engagement with your agency’s constituents? Let us know in comments and on Twitter @AdobeGov and @AdobeCEM.

Are solving the issues of effective identity and authentication pre-requisites to delivering channel shift to low cost online public services?

The future of public services is most definitely digital: confirmed last month in the Government’s new ICT strategy. Indeed, in the Age of Austerity the potential for reducing the costs of service delivery by a switch to digital is too great to miss – but unless we can securely deliver the right service to the right people we risk even greater waste through fraud and further contact.

The London Borough of Brent has been trialling a new concept – the Mydex citizen data store – along with exploring use of the Government Gateway; Enfield, meanwhile, has implemented a new corporate authentication service with help from Serco and GB Group. The panel explored the benefits and pitfalls of getting ID and authentication right.

On the panel:

• Dane Wright, IT Strategy Manager at the London Borough of Brent
• Lee Grafton, Serco and Enfield’s GB Group identity solution
• Gilles Polin, Adobe’s European Head of Government Solutions
• Helen Olsen, Managing Editor, UKauthorITy and ITU magazine

An on demand version of the Webcast is available from this link.