18F’s human services portfolio

This repo is an index of work in the human services space led by teams within GSA's Technology Transformation Service (TTS) (which includes 18F).

About the portfolio

Over the last two-plus years, several teams within TTS have worked on a number of projects that fall within the human services space. This body of work has led to a deeper understanding of the challenges of the space from a variety of angles. We believe we can increase our potential for impact by approaching this as a cohesive body of work and making thoughtful choices about how and where we engage moving forward.

Our vision

We envision a world where:

People actually receive the services they are eligible for.
Government agencies of all levels work together effectively to deliver human services.
State human services agencies operate efficiently, effectively, and sustainably.
State workers are empowered to change how their agencies operate.
Money spent on human services programs results in tangible value delivered.
The marketplace of vendors and solutions serving these programs is accessible, vibrant and efficient.

Our role in making this vision a reality

TTS is in a unique position to be a leader in this shift, influencing the ecosystem and its actors from a variety of angles due to our ability to work with agencies across the federal government, our experience supporting states through procurement consulting, our ongoing engagement with the vendor community, and our ability to build products and platforms for use across government.

Where and how we can help:

Federal agencies: We can help federal agencies achieve better outcomes by improving their methods for delivering policy, oversight, and funding (e.g. through APD reform, etc).
States: We can help states administering federal programs with federal dollars increase their capacity to run these kinds of programs effectively through a variety of consulting and training activities (e.g. our work with Alaska Eligibility & Enrollment, CA Child Welfare).
The market: We can influence the market of solutions, vendors who can play, and the methods and expectations of delivery.
The ecosystem: We can contribute directly to the ecosystem of reusable, modular components in the marketplace.
The approach: We can proactively and publicly share our lessons learned, crafting influential communications and materials that help shape the direction of the broader movement, even advocating for policy change where possible (what 18F has done for general best practices in gov tech, we can do specifically for the human services community).

Current projects

We have worked with partners at the federal, state, and local levels learning about user needs from the beneficiaries in need of care to the federal agencies overseeing the programs, and experimenting with approaches to solve those problems.

Alaska Eligibility & Enrollment (E&E) modernization

Our team has been partnering with the Alaska Department of Health & Social Services, Division of Public Assistance (DPA) for the last year and a half to help them take an iterative, user-centered and modular approach to procuring and building a modern, integrated eligibility system. DPA's goal in this modernization is to enable staff to more efficiently issue correct and timely benefits to Alaskans who need help meeting their basic needs, in a manner that not only meets state and federal standards, but is user friendly for their clients, their eligibility staff, and their technical staff.

People:

Current: Mark Headd, Elizabeth Ayers, Amy Ashida, Clint Troxel, Randy Hart

Previous: Waldo Jaquith, Michael Torres, Ed Mullen, Steven Reilly

Links:

Vermont E&E modernization

Our team has been partnering with the State of Vermont for the last year to help them pursue a modular, iterative procurement strategy to move towards an Integrated Eligibility & Enrollment system and incrementally migrate away from their legacy systems, with the goal of better serving state staff who administer public benefits like Medicaid and SNAP to Vermont residents.

People:

Current: Alicia Rouault, Randy Hart, Andrew Burnes, Amy Ashida, Steven Reilly, Alex Pandel

Previous: Vicki McFadden, Greg Walker, Mark Hopson, Nikki Lee, Robin Carnahan, Jessie Posilkin

Links:

No public repository at this time
Internal project README for Year 1 on Google Drive 🔒
Internal project README for Year 2 on Google Drive 🔒

HHS/CMS Advance Planning Document(APD) modernization

In addition to our state work, we are partnering directly with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to identify opportunities to make changes at the federal level to help states be more successful in their efforts to modernize their Medicaid systems.

Our current focus is on exploring ways to streamline the process by which states submit their project plans (called Advance Planning Documents, or APDs) for funding approval by CMS. We're starting by prototyping a web form states can use to build and submit their APD in a standardized way, focusing first on just HITECH APDs. The goal is to simplify the process for states by making the process formalized and well-defined, and to help CMS reach funding decisions more quickly so states spend less time waiting to find out if they’re getting money.

People:

Current: Nikki Lee, Laura Poncé, Greg Walker, James Hupp, Heather Battaglia

Previous: Ron Bronson, Brendan Sudol, Nicole Fenton, Meghana Khandekar, Nick Brethauer, Alex Pandel, Dan Williams, Zac Cohn

Links:

10x E&E - Eligibility rules service

The eligibility rules service project is exploring the idea of providing shared web services that states could use to help make eligibility determinations for human services programs. Currently funded through 10x, we are working with the SNAP team at FNS exploring the feasibility of a rules service for the D-SNAP program and an accompanying online registration form.

People:

Current: Ed Mullen, Vraj Mohan, Adam Biagianti, Alex Pandel

Previous: Catherine Devlin, Shawnique Muller

Links:

GitHub repo
Presentation: What is the Eligibility Rules Service project?
Internal project README on Google Drive 🔒

Past Projects (WIP)

California Child Welfare modernization

18F has been partnering with the California Child Welfare Digital Services (CWDS) team since 2015. CWDS is a collaboration of state and local government agencies dedicated to building a new child welfare information system that responds to users’ needs while maintaining the best standards for security and data integrity. The goal is for CWDS to develop a strategy for building a new, intuitive, user-centric system that will have a direct impact on child safety, permanency, and well-being. The scope of the project includes supporting CWDS by providing hands on support to product owners, improving agile practices, and evaluating product and technical strategy.

People:

Current: Allison Norman, Colin Craig, Robin Carnahan, Alex Pandel, Clint Troxel

Previous: CM Lubinski, Will Sullivan, Jesse Taggert, Dave Zvenyach, Shashank Khandelwal, Mark Headd, Alan Altas, Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Nikki Lee, Ed Mullen

Links:

Internal project README on Google Drive 🔒

Alaska Child Welfare modernization

The State of Alaska Office of Children’s Services (OCS) is starting process of transitioning from their legacy child welfare system to something that will meet the new CCWIS standard from ACF. In advance of this, OCS sought the assistance of the TTS Acquisition Team to develop an acquisition strategy to support to transition from the current system to a new CCWIS-compliant system. Developing a new acquisition strategy also entailed a review of their existing practices around procurement, software development and vendor engagement.

People: Mark Headd, Alan Atlas, Waldo Jaquith, Vraj Mohan, Ed Mullen, Randy Hart

Links:

USDA/SNAP State waiver path analysis

The USDA's Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) contracted with vendors to build a system to improve the process for States requesting waivers related to administering Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. With this system, they intend to reduce the time in the waiver decision making cycle, reduce inconsistencies across states, and increase customer service quality. The system would replace a paper process.

Unfortunately, work produced by the vendor did not meet FNS's requirements and FNS terminated the relationship. 18F will help FNS assess whether any of the work that they have is usable. We will also help set a path forward for a functioning system and for successfully managing it in the future.

People: Roger Steve Ruiz, Nikki Zeichner

Links:

GitHub repo

10x Data Federation (w FNS Child Nutrition)

more info coming soon

CA MEDS - Medicaid Eligibility modernization

California is starting a large scale procurement effort to modernize their Medicaid eligibility system (known as MEDS). 18F was asked to create a technical prototype in order to de-risk this effort, generate enthusiasm for a more iterative, user-centered way of working, and identify stumbling points that need to be addressed before vendors join the effort.

People: Nikki Lee, Aaron Borden, Adam Biagianti, Victor Zapanta, Alex Pandel, Jessie Posilkin, Sasha Magee

Links: Internal project README on Google Drive 🔒