P&P August 2015

In addition to important business drivers, childwelfare technology professionals and operationsmanagers face their own set of challenges and opportunities to modernize childwelfare services. Cloud computing can help—by containing costs, improving processes, and increasing service quality.

Final Points to Consider In addition to important business drivers, CW technology professionals and operations managers face their own set of challenges and opportunities to modernize child welfare services. Cloud computing can help—by con- taining costs, improving processes, and increasing service quality. Ask yourself: Does your agency have periods of peak workload activity? If yes, cloud computing provides on- demand service delivery. This means agencies can accommodate uneven computing loads on an as-needed basis, spinning up resources and envi- ronments when needed, using them during the peak, and eliminating them when the workload dissipates. This can dramatically reduce expenditures for resources that are largely idle during off-peak periods. Is this your agency? Does your orga- nization have a broad combination of applications, written in a wide variety of programming languages, running on a confusing mix of platforms that don’t talk to each other? Can they share timely, accurate, and valuable information? Standardization and consolidation in a cloud environ- ment can reduce costs and improve agility at every level in your agency. Protecting and serving children and families is your mission. Cloud solutions can be an enabler to help you more effectively deliver modern services to your important clients. That’s when modern technology para- digms fall to the background and you can focus on what matters most.

Deployment is minimal, the infra- structure is ready, and the security requirements are already in place. Incremental Modernization: While demands for modern services are high, the risks associated with modernization need not be. Gone are the days when “rip and replace” applies to all aspects of IT moderniza- tion. Cloud computing changes this. For example, on-demand provisioning allows for agile development, testing, and deployment of agency applica- tions by delivering resources only when needed. Put differently, cloud computing allows an organization to stand up test and development environments that are identical, only when needed, use them temporarily, and eliminate them when the need no longer exists. Why is this important? This functionality better enables faster development of services. The modern- ization approach can be incremental, replacing pieces of functionality rather than the entire application. This can reduce project risk, enable better training, and, subsequently, increase adoption. Subscription Based: Cloud com- puting virtually eliminates vendor lock-in. The services are based on sub- scriptions, allowing the flexibility for customers to move from one provider to another as circumstances dictate. Depending on the service model, the customer may choose neither to own the application nor the hardware on which it runs, allowing for a very low cost for entry to explore different services, service models, and service delivery organizations.

and enter observation notes and data throughout the day using their mobile device. The extra time in the field allows caseworkers to visit with more children and families and modern cloud tools allow caseworkers access to current information on demand. Mobility: Some of the biggest oppor- tunities for CW agencies will arise through mobile scenarios. Caseworker- client communications will improve. For example, cloud computing gives mobile-device users a level of speech recognition accuracy that is virtu- ally on par with call center-based transcription services. Imagine a caseworker at a client site needing to communicate with someone who only speaks Spanish. The caseworker could contact the client through the mobile device and have their words instantly translated into the other’s language using voice recognition and translation software. Analytics: The cloud can enable CW agencies to better understand the population being served by tracking overall service usage and create the ability to identify and prioritize service needs. Traditionally, child welfare agencies use trend analysis to assist in decision-making. They accomplish this by comparing data over time and identifying the results—predicting outcomes. Predictive analytics are changing the way cases are managed and are impacting and improving all aspects of child welfare, from placements to outcomes. The cloud offers the ability to take advantage of predictive analytics through the use of data feeds to tuned data models.

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August 2015   Policy&Practice