Government Bits

Tracking how technology is transforming interaction between governments and citizens.

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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.

For example, imagine what it would be like to exclusively use a cell phone to conduct an exhaustive job search… then actually write and submit a resume on the same device.

Or maybe you need to research and compare your options for health benefits and other social services… then actually select a plan and submit multiple forms of information to enroll a family of five.

In most cases, these simple tasks would be difficult to say the least on a mobile device.  But they don’t have to be; technologies exist today that can extend robust Internet experiences through these channels and then measure their effectiveness.

This new digital divide, which also includes the lack of universal broadband availability (an issue that deserves a posting of its own), was among the topics covered as I recently addressed tribal leaders and executives on tribal health IT at the 12^th annual Tribalnet conference in Scottsdale, AZ.

This year’s theme was Bringing Technology and Tribes Together, and that was comprehensively explored throughout the three conference tracks offered: IT Governance, Tribal Health, and Virtualization.

As some Tribalnet attendees prepared to also attend the upcoming White House Tribal Nations Conference to continue these important discussions, I was reminded of our government’s commitment to these issues. Regarding improved service in tribal lands, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, recently commented “Our actions will further empower native nations to access and use the latest technologies to grow their businesses, increase their access to quality health care and education, reach 911 during emergencies and receive public alerts and warnings.”

And while this level of attention to such a vital lifeline for so many is commendable, I am personally hopeful that we won’t stop there to ensure that meaningful access eventually becomes a mindless afterthought for everyone.

Let us know what you think on Twitter @AdobeGov and @AdobeCEM, or on Facebook.

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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.

Additionally, the national Medicare “donut hole” shrank last year by an average of 40% for elderly and disabled citizens. The donut hole refers to a gap in benefits coverage where seniors incur substantial costs as they pay for prescription medications 100% out-of-pocket after standard Medicare drug benefits have been exhausted, but before catastrophic coverage kicks in. By 2020, in accordance with the PPACA, the Medicare “donut hole” gap will be completely phased out.

To raise awareness of these and other benefits, I proposed that state leaders employ innovative resources, like social media and other dynamic online forums, in conjunction with conventional methods, like town hall meetings such as those at the conference, to spread the word. These same tactics, along with powerful data analytics, should be deployed to measure the effectiveness of other program components as well.

Advocacy also plays a big part in health reform, particularly as it relates to the rate of community adoption during implementation. Navigators, or certified individuals who provide health benefits education, will play a critical role in assisting underserved populations with enrollment in qualified plans and escalation of grievances. To that end, health IT solutions like Health Insurance Exchanges (HIX) that improve access for citizens must also include provisions for navigators to securely act on behalf of authenticated applicants in the exchange.

Among the invited attendees at the conference were select college students who were concerned about employment prospects as they prepare to enter the state’s workforce, as well as other constituents interested in the local economic aspects of health reform and other state initiatives. Christian Johansson, Secretary of the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, was on hand to review the state’s strategic plans to facilitate job creation and empowerment by driving sustainability in high growth industries like healthcare and IT.

Overall, the annual conference was an overwhelming success as it accomplished the simple but powerful goal of its organizers to increase engagement, dialogue, and meaningful interactions between the state’s business leaders, policy makers and the people they serve. I was proud to represent Adobe there and I look forward to similar opportunities in the future.

Customer communications has always been at the core of enterprise service strategies.  For organizations striving to capitalize on strengthened relationships with consumers, it often seems 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 with 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!)

And what does the agency typically get in exchange for such an expensive investment?  The list is long, but a few of the most recurring responses include:

1. Frustrated consumers who feel inconvenienced. (“Please listen carefully since the menu options have changed. Press 1 to continue…”   Ugh!!!)
2. Error-ridden databases, which are usually the result of redundant manual entries.
3. Significant bottlenecks in processes that contribute even more to # 1 and # 2 above.

This dysfunctional cycle is often a symptom of more alarming inefficiencies throughout the enterprise, and it was high among trending topics when I spoke on a panel at a recent summit in our nation’s capital: “IT for Effective Government Healthcare Programs.”

IT plays an integral role in the administration of government programs. This is particularly true in healthcare where significant challenges, like increasing costs and barriers to access for life-saving benefits, may vary significantly between diverse regions.  But in order for these healthcare programs to be successful, there are three key requirements that should be considered and addressed in every aspect of the lifecycle:

1.   Engagement on the front end

•  IT solutions need to provide value to its intended audience in order to be adopted as a better way for doing business.  Ultimately, if the solution doesn’t actually get used then it is useless.  For example, the US Department of Veterans Affairs selected Adobe’s solution as the winner of their Blue Button Developers Challenge in part due to the dynamic experience that our solution provides users as they securely interact with their personal health data.

2.   Efficiency on the back end

• IT solutions for government healthcare programs should clearly align with one or more business objectives and demonstrate a direct correlation to optimized workflows, streamlined processes, or improved outcomes such as at the Illinois Department of Human Services. Also consider the example of a public health plan like Medicaid leveraging an interactive statement to communicate explanation of benefits (EOB) to its members. The i-Statement EOB empowers health plans to transform their static one-size-fits-all paper statements into a dynamic two-way communication channel which enables members to manage their accounts or chat with customer service agents from within the electronic document. Members can even dispute the accuracy of a claim, thereby reducing the risks of fraud and potentially saving hundreds of millions of dollars annually by helping to identify overcharges that otherwise may have slipped through the cracks.

3.   Effectiveness throughout

• Measuring progress, adoption, and impact of government healthcare programs is essential to fully exploiting and replicating successful implementations, or proactively adapting projects that are failing.  Through real-time segmentation, dashboards, and other intelligence, program managers can gain a complete picture of how consumers are interacting with health IT solutions like benefits enrollment portals, and then deliver relevant and engaging digital content that boosts key performance metrics. These days, agencies can’t afford to wait until the end of a fiscal cycle before they begin to determine whether a program is working. Embedded analytics and other related tools help to ensure the measurable effectiveness of health IT solutions almost immediately.

In the end, rather than suggesting the elimination of traditional mail processing and call centers altogether, my fellow panelists and I agreed that agencies instead should objectively evaluate the processes that surround these cost centers, and look for ways to complement them with technology. In most cases, that will create a win-win environment for everyone, since the byproduct of optimized customer experience is often an improved bottom line for the enterprise.

Let us know what you think on Twitter @AdobeGov and @AdobeCEM, or on Facebook.

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.

Our colleagues in the UK recently began a series of interesting webinars on key government IT topics, and featuring some great speakers from gov organizations and elsewhere.

The latest in the series takes place tomorrow, Feb. 17, at 9:00am ET, and is titled, Online Citizen and Business Services: Online citizen self-service in the age of austerity. You can read more about it on the Adobe UK enterprise blog here, and can register for the event here. @AdobeEnterprise will also be live tweeting. Regardless of where you’re located, we encourage you to check it out.

The webinars are planned each month for the next several, and topics include:

• March 17: Security – Citizen Data and Transactions
• April 14: Designing and Delivering Intuitive Processes and Service Transactions
• May 12: Simplifying Service Transactions and Business processes

Keep your eyes on the Adobe UK enterprise blog and @AdobeGov for the latest.

Update: an on-demand version of the Feb. 17 webinar is now available. Please check it out here. The discussion of Online Citizen and Business Services featured the following panelists:

• Dominic Cain, Head of Client Services at the London Borough of Southwark
• Guy Ker, Publishing Director at Directgov
• Gilles Polin, Adobe’s European Head of Government Solutions
• Helen Olsen, Managing Editor, Informed Publications

I recently participated in a panel discussing how concepts of customer centricity in the private sector can translate to use in the government.   The private sector has significantly increased its focus and understanding of customer experience.  In recent years, companies have added specific management roles dedicated to Customer Experience and have also refined how to measure the quality of a customer’s experience.  The measurement of customer experience is equally important for government.  How are companies measuring customer experience and how does this translate to use in government?

Earlier this week at the Adobe MAX conference, the new Adobe LiveCycle Suite ES2.5 was announced. There are a number of new aspects to the release but I want to focus on a two pieces that government agencies might find particularly useful–mobility and correspondence. This new release makes it much easier for government agencies to manage citizen correspondence and to empower mobile staff such as case workers or inspectors.