Policy and Practice | June 2022

associated with COVID. There was a strong desire to identify opportuni ties for children and staff to remain in school. Leveraging the data collected from the contact tracing efforts, Rhode Island identified schools as the safest place for children and with a lower transmission rate due to school-imple mented policies. The Result With this knowledge, a Test to Stay program was implemented, where exposed staff and children were per mitted to attend school in adherence to a set of policy guidance. This ini tiative increased school attendance, which resulted in a decrease of educa tional gaps, and reduced the financial burden on families who were previ ously required to stay at home with their children. NOTE: During the pilot Test to Stay program, which included one school district over a month period, roughly 402 school days were saved that would have otherwise been COVID-related absentees. The program was extended across the state. It created an equitable opportunity for children to remain in school and reduced educational gaps. Families, who were disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, could remain at work, thus reducing undue financial burdens. Conclusion Shining a light on existing systems has exposed the gaps into which individuals and families in need of support can easily fall more deeply, and at greater cost, into crisis. With technology capabilities growing at exponential rates, public-sector agencies are discovering an incredible opportunity to improve individual and family health and wellness outcomes. They are increasing access, improving efficiency, and delivering a quality experience while reducing costs. Essential to the development of any system design aimed to achieve these outcomes, however, are the voices of diverse stakeholders and community members. In our experience with health and human services clients, this is the key to achieving person-cen tered, equity-focused, and data-driven systems of care.

COVID operations team with COO Kristine Campagna, and Education Setting Lead Tara Cooper, partnered with IBM policy analysts to design an engaging public health strategy addressing the needs of the community and key stakeholders. The Solution Shift fromMandates to Community-Gathered Input The State of Rhode Island priori tized schools at the beginning of the pandemic. It focused on reopening schools while maintaining high public safety measures. The mission meant moving an entire system—not through traditional mandates—but through a community-driven strategy. IBM developed programmatic solu tions to gather surveillance data from schools en masse. Using COVID-19 case information collection via phone investigations and targeted online surveys, RIDOH and IBM were able to use their system to automati cally detect outbreaks and potential clusters across the state. This allowed Rhode Island to respond to outbreaks faster. It reduced transmission within schools and mitigated educational gaps resulting from COVID-related absenteeism. Voice of the Community Built Focused Playbooks Community enablement promoted quick results within educational facilities. The Rhode Island strategy of enablement started with the commu nity voice—both parent and youth—to understand local community needs and provide accurate updates to policy and clinical guidance. Each week, school districts, gathered with RIDOH, were prepared with data-driven insights to combat the next step of the disease spread and understand the needs of the communities. The state developed playbooks for the commu nity to efficiently report, understand, and prevent disease spread. Investigate Community Needs and Create Data-Driven Policies With the progression of the pandemic, there was growing frus tration among families and children regarding the impacts of absenteeism

and more efficiently support their client through: n Acquisition and review of the intake/report n Determination of appropriate service (case) type determinations such as Child Welfare, Child Support, or Domestic Violence n Creation of service-specific activities n Scheduling of appropriate follow-ups The Results As a result of the tribe’s initiative to better support individuals, a holistic, person-centered approach to care has been achieved. By improving access and creating efficient delivery of necessary benefits and services, tribe members can improve their clients’ well-being more readily. An agent of the tribe can now pull specific client information in seconds. Before, it was a lengthier, manual process of opening a file cabinet to find the client’s folder and sift through its contents. Today, agents can leave notes, send emails, see the account balance, and child and family services statuses more rapidly. They can also see court case dates related to client cases. The agency and workers are able to efficiently stay up to date on their client activities and easily view the various benefits and services being provided. A secure application provides access with specific roles and authority. This permits only agents with authorized credentials to see sensitive client information. Case Study #3: Rhode Island Department of Health: COVID-19 School Openings The Challenge The COVID-19 pandemic shattered a fragile education system. Educational facilities faced understaffed programs and under-resourced health programs. A requirement to understand each educational community and drive deci sions based on data became critical to the handling of the disease outbreak. Community members in Rhode Island were quick to respond. They were eager to understand the educational facilities’ stance on national policy and clinical guidance. The Rhode Island Department of Health’s (RIDOH)

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June 2022 Policy&Practice