P&P April Issue 2018

Traditional Case Management Is a Commodity Mobility, Analytics, and Interoperability Drive Better Outcomes

By Stuart Venzke, Mary-Sara Jones, and Paul Dommel

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uite simply, developing a modern and responsive health and human services (H/HS) system requires modern and responsive information technology (IT) systems. It is not enough to collect, process, and display client and case information, as traditional case management systems do. A modern and responsive system must help agencies sense and respond to changing circumstances in real time, rather than waiting for a report that merely describes what happened months ago. Modern H/HS agencies must recognize the H/HS system extends well beyond the walls of the governmental H/HS agencies, to include community-based and other organizations with which clients engage. And a modern and responsive H/HS system must enable and empower human services profes- sionals within their workflows, as they are assisting clients or managing cases, so they view it as a tool that helps them do their job, rather than an impediment to it. This is well beyond the scope of traditional case management, which has become a commodity. To build a modern and responsive H/HS system, agencies should focus on developing three key capabilities supported by technology: interoperability, analytics, and mobility.

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Policy&Practice   April 2018