Verticals

Health & Human Services

With health and human service organizations facing intense resource constraints even as they try to improve life-critical service delivery to their communities’ neediest citizens, it is paramount for health and human service administrators to develop innovative ways to harness the power of people, processes and technology to implement true interoperability of people, processes, technologies and policies. One of the crucial steps along this journey toward achievement of a holistic, interoperable vision is HHS organizations’ development of an understanding of their internal business processes. Only through a detailed study of these processes can we identify potential impediments to achievement of their interoperable vision.

Mindboard, through its innovative Enterprise Modernization practice, provides cutting edge strategic consulting services to organizations at the State and local level, where essential Health and Human services are often delivered. These organizations often face challenges, not only because they operate with resource constraints, but also because of gaps in strategy, business processes and technology as far as the implementation of Federal policies such as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is concerned. Our team of professionals has successfully helped our clients make significant strides towards the achievement of a streamlined strategic vision through the employment of cutting edge yet practical academic, business and technical methodologies.

Mindboard continues to strive towards helping our Health and Human Services clients achieve their strategic objectives through the utilization of methodologies and technologies that are cost effective, timely and practical. We are at the forefront of providing critical advisory services to our clients and introducing new and better ways of doing business.

Case Study

Montgomery County Department of Health and Human Services

Electronic Integrated Case Management (eICM)

Role: Business Process Redesign, Project Management Oversight, Technology Architecture and Design
Objective: Integration of 140 disparate processes across six program areas into an integrated, “no wrong door” process that will allow recipients of HHS services to apply for and obtain services more efficiently while providing a single, integrated system of record for caseworkers.

Background and Solution:

Montgomery County, MD is one of the largest counties in the State of Maryland and serves a diverse population, some of which requires assistance from the County’s Health and Human Services programs. Montgomery County DHHS provides services within six program areas (Aging & Disability Services, Behavioral Health and Crisis Services, Public Health Services, Special Needs Housing and Administration), each of which houses multiple discrete programs and associated processes. The objective of this project is to integrate DHHS services to:

Enable citizens of Montgomery County to obtain DHHS services through a “No Wrong Door” approach
Enable DHHS case workers and management to efficiently administer, manage and track services

Mindboard team is spearheading design and implementation using Oracle/Siebel platform. To provide full case information, the system integrates with both State systems and other County systems. Integration with the state systems use Web services, including middleware and a National Information Exchange Model (NIEM) structure for communication. The communication with other County systems (e.g., eHR) use a master data structure implemented using Oracle Enterprise Data Quality (EDQ) tools. The case outcomes, analytics, and reporting is performed using Oracle’s Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) and Oracle’s Case Management Analytics package.

Case Study: Health & Human Services · Case Study: HHS Eligibility System Design Services

Public Transit

A robust, affordable and reliable public transportation system is critical when it comes to enabling the economic success of communities across the globe. Public transportation systems (bus, rail, trolleys, etc.) are also important from an economic, quality of life, environmental and future growth perspective. With a general increase in purchasing power in the United States and the resultant increase in the number of private automobiles, the country’s road networks are under ever-increasing strain. On the other hand, public transit organizations across the country are operating with limited resources that curtail their ability to provide fast, reliable and affordable services. Newer technologies such as Intelligent Transportation Systems (Computer Aided Dispatch, Automated Vehicle Location, Passenger Counters), Vehicle Health Diagnostics, Fuel and Yard Management Systems and Maintenance Management Systems allow public transit authorities to bridge the gap between demand and resources by creative utilization of management information. Mindboard is at the forefront of helping our Public Transit clients strategize vision, streamline business processes and implement technologies that enable them to deliver outstanding services at affordable costs.

Within the public transportation sphere, Mindboard specializes in providing strategic operations modernization services through the use of innovative business practices and tactical technology acquisitions. Our proven expertise is showcased through our successes with helping small, medium and large public transit systems implement complex Intelligent Transportation Systems. Additionally, we are in the constant pursuit of taking technology advisory services to the next level by unearthing disruptive trends in technology, to the benefit of our clients. Our team of professionals has successfully helped our clients make significant strides towards the achievement of a streamlined strategic vision through the employment of cutting edge yet practical academic, business and technical methodologies. Innovations such as Software as a Service, connected devices, Internet of Things and Mobility as a Service, are rapidly changing the traditional model of service delivery, and Mindboard stands poised to ensure that our clients are able to take advantage of these developments.

Case Study

Client: Western Reserve Transit Authority – ITS Needs Assessment, Procurement & Implementation

Role: Strategic Planning, Business Process Redesign, Requirements Definition, and Procurement Support
Objective: Development of an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Needs Assessment, Requirements Development of RFP and Procurement Support

Background and Solution:

Mindboard was engaged in developing a Comprehensive Plan for Advanced Public Transportation System (APTS) at the Western Reserve Transit Authority (WRTA) in Youngstown, OH. Mindboard initiated this project by interviewing key WRTA personnel in an effort to understand WRTA's ITS vision. Following our analysis of the interview findings, reviewing WRTA services, facilities and IT resources, and shadowing critical business processes and documents, we defined WRTA's ITS vision. Based on our observations and findings, Mindboard developed a comprehensive ITS Needs Assessment Document, business and functional requirements that were included in the system procurement RFP.

The Mindboard team conducted a benchmark study and best practices review to identify gaps in WRTA’s ITS processes and developed an ITS Action Plan. Mindboard identified suitable applications that fit WRTA's future requirements and budget allocations. Mindboard additionally prepared an ITS implementation plan and defined technical specifications for selected applications and developed a request for proposal (RFP) for identified APTS.

Mindboard also managed the ITS vendor review and procurement process by evaluating vendor proposals, developing vendor information packets, conducting qualitative and quantitative analyses, managing vendor demonstrations, providing recommendation for vendor selection, and conducting contract negotiations with selected vendor.

Case Study: Public Transit

State & Local Agencies

State and Local government agencies are the very visible stewards of public taxpayer dollars and as such, are under constant pressure to deliver civic services in the best possible manner, with ever decreasing budgets and diminishing resources. Among the many challenges facing government agencies across the United States is the need to continue providing outstanding services to its citizens in the face of increasing or decreasing populations, rapid technological changes and ever decreasing resources. What often comes across as the “same old” government apathy and speed to solving problems, is usually a particular agency’s struggle to provide outstanding services with existing resources – budgetary, manpower, legislative and technological.

State and local governments provide a wide array of services to their constituents, ranging from utilities (water, sewer, power), public works, law and order, parks and recreation, health and human services, transportation, among others. The Mindboard team has extensive experience providing enterprise modernization services to State and local government agencies across diverse functional areas throughout the United States. Our clientele includes agencies that span the following functional areas, among others:

Health and Human Services
Public Works
Public Utilities (Water, Sewer and Power)
Parks and Recreation
Property and Asset Management
Fleet Management
Public Safety
Information Technology
Parking Management
Finance
Procurement
Housing
Education (K-12, SLED)
Forestry

Throughout each engagement, the Mindboard team has sought to provide outstanding services to our clients to enable them to serve their citizens in the most effective manner. We have assisted clients within this vertical with IT implementation & integration, business process review and reengineering, requirements definition, system implementation, integration and maintenance support. Mindboard continues to strategize the use of pioneering new and emerging technologies such as Software as a Service, Platform as a Service and Mobility as a Service to effectively automate and manage processes such as work order management, inventory control, utility billing, financial management, case management, etc. It is our ongoing intent to introduce our State and Local government clients with tools that are affordable, effective and reliable. Our State and local government clients can provide testimony to the fact that our services continue to help them recognize ways to better deliver critical services to their citizens.

Case Study

Client: State of Maryland, Department of Human Resources

Project: Maryland Department of Human Resources – Implementation of xPression Document Generation and Delivery solution

Role: UI/UX Redesign, Business Process Redesign, Project Management Support, Technology Architecture, Design, Implementation and Test (including UAT support) of the end-to-end technology overhaul of the legacy system for customer communications to a brand new platform for the online and batch processes to support 50K+ users; migrate 2500+ templates.
Objective: Implementation of xPression Document Generation and Delivery solution for the four MD DHR legacy towers.

Background and Solution:

MD DHR legacy systems produces several million (in double digits) notices per year using a batch notice generation process based on COBOL and in some cases send to CDC for batch printing and mailing, and in other cases printed using local printers, which are then manually folded and stuffed in mailer envelopes for a mail out. The notices are based on ‘000s of templates, some in English and some in Spanish, and business logic embedded in the primary business process. Historic notices are stored on the shared drive (SAN) and retrieved through custom green screens.

The absence of a standardized editing tool makes On-Demand creation of case documents challenging. The current notice generation technology is outdated, difficult to maintain, and restricts full functionality.

Mindboard is the primary provider of the integration, implementation and testing services for the customer communications modernization effort at MD DHR. Through the implementation of xPression, notice generation and delivery processes have become centralized in an enterprise system of record and will significantly improve notice generation efficiency.

Case Study: State & Local Agencies

Corporate

Mindboard consultants have expertise in telecommunications vertical, both in the Wireline (Enterprise) and Wireless space. The consultants draw on an in-depth knowledge of our clients' businesses, systems, practices as well as our own in-depth industry research to develop & implement sustainable strategies & cutting edge solutions for our corporate clients.

We currently service the following customers in the private sector:

Verizon Enterprise Solutions (VES), and
Samsung Telecommunications for Americas

Case Study

Client: Large Telecom, VA – Operations Management Reporting & Analysis

Role: Data Warehouse (DWH) Evaluation, Repository Modeling Development, Team Development, Data Model with Scorecard and Report Development
Objective: Provide expertise in the implementation and organization of OBIEE including evaluation of DHW structure, repository development and modeling, knowledge transfer to in-house developers, security, release processes and best practices.

Background and Solution:

Performance Management Reporting and Analysis is responsible for development, delivering and providing on-demand operational and performance analysis reporting. The group wanted to migrate the existing reports (.NET/C#, SSRS with Oracle 11g) and models to Oracle OBIEE platform to provide executive to center to rep-level reporting from fully integrated dashboards to “delivered” reports to ad-hoc reports. The business team was in the process of implementing OBIEE using new IT-managed/administered infrastructure.

For this project, Mindboard partnered with Accenture.

This project scope included

evaluation of the current data warehouse (DWH) structure,
repository development and modeling,
Scorecards and report development, and
team development including knowledge transfer to the in-house developers, and train them on application security, release processes and best practices.

The project was approached in 2 phases:

Phase I – Project Initiation and Data/Information Gathering
Phase II – Data Modeling with a Dashboard and 4 executive level Reports

During Phase I, the Mindboard’s OBIEE Hands-On-Consultant-Team reviewed the existing (“as is”) ETL/database and evaluated with the group the amount of expansion expected within the timeline of the project, outlined development of subsets of four subject areas and population through the Admin Tools provided in the Standard Edition Client, the Scorecard RPD sufficient to allow flexibility (Kimball). Phase 1 deliverables were Data Structure Evaluation Report, which included

Data Structure Evaluation for the identified Scorecard
Data Structure Evaluation for up to four (4) executive level reports across Order Management, Provisioning and Maintenance Functional Areas

During Phase II, Mindboard’s focus was to get the “right” data model ready for dash boarding and reporting. The client team was an Agile shop, thus the tasks were performed through a modified Agile (Extreme Programming) approach with a subset of the SCRUM in two week iterative sprints for the life of the project. The data model was developed in conjunction with in house business users and DHW developers, care was taken to allow the model for Global / Regional / National and International reporting. Model was sourced from multiple reporting tables and allowed for complex dimensionality. Reports developed, allowed users to Drill to various provision and order-level detail tables and the model was optimized/tuned for good user experience.

Case Study: Corporate

Municipal Water Utilities Management

The delivery of clean drinking water to citizens is a critical function undertaken by municipal government agencies and private companies across the globe. As with any organization that relies on natural resources to provide services, municipal utilities face significant challenges to their operations. With rapid changes in the availability of raw resources owing to environmental and regulatory challenges, utility companies are in a race against time to sustain their operations while providing the highest quality of potable water supply to its consumers. Across the United States, water utilities are battling the interplay of an aging infrastructure, decreasing consumption and therefore, increasing costs of operation and capital investment. In addition to physical assets used in the delivery of these services, utilities rely heavily on information technology assets to ensure that operations run smoothly, customers receive accurate and timely bills, human resources are accountable and the safety of the infrastructure is maintained at all times. Mindboard’s utility consulting practice focuses on helping our clients achieve their strategic objectives through the following consulting services:

IT Strategic Planning
Organizational Assessment
Business Process Reengineering
ERP Assessment and Implementation
Electronic Document and Content Management
Work Order Management
Customer Care and Billing Systems
Fleet and Mobility Management Solutions
Business Intelligence

Case Study

Client: Large Suburban Water Agency

Role: IT Assessment & RFP Development
Objective: Comprehensive Peer Review of the Large Suburban Water Agency’s Technology and Business Systems, and IT Support Services RFP Development and Vendor Selection

Background and Solution:

A Large Suburban Water Agency (“Agency”) in Southern California engaged Mindboard to conduct an independent comprehensive peer review of the Agency’s technology and business systems to ensure the effectiveness and reliability of its Information Technology environment. The initiative was aimed at identifying and assessing critical challenges of the Agency’s IT function and ensuring that the Agency maintains its IT infrastructure and operations according to the industry standards and best practices.

Mindboard’s approach in conducting this study included three major phases

Data Gathering,
Critical Analysis and
Recommendation Development

During the data-gathering phase, Mindboard Project Team (“Project Team”) obtained information through a series of on-site interviews and also reviewing available documentation. Personal interviews were utilized as the primary tool for data gathering, which enabled the Project Team to obtain a clear picture of the challenges faced by the Agency at present. The critical analysis phase was utilized to synthesize the information captured into an actionable format. A major part of the analysis phase was to develop a comprehensive GAP analysis, utilizing prior information gathered, combined with our institutional knowledge of public sector IT best practices. As part of the gap analysis process, Mindboard utilized a three-dimensional approach, namely People, Process, and Technology (PPT) to develop a high-level understanding of the current state of the Agency IT environment by assessing how these three elements interact with each other within the Agency. Finally, recommendations were developed utilizing key findings from the gap analysis. For implementation purposes, Mindboard categorized the strategic recommendations to immediate (0-3 months), short term (3-12 months), and medium term (12 – 36 months), and long term (36-60 months).

The Agency also engaged Mindboard to assist them in the IT Support Services Request for Proposal Development and Vendor Selection. To develop comprehensive RFP document, we conducted series of interviews to various department personnel to gather information what services are rendered right now and what services they want the new IT Support vendor to render. Following the interview and outcome of comprehensive analysis of the Agency’s technology infrastructure, we developed the RFP document in two segments – Managed Services and On-demand services. After publishing the RFP document, we are currently conducting proposal evaluation and analyzing the received proposals from the cost benefit analysis viewpoint. After this analysis, we will participate in the vendor demonstration for short listed vendors and then conduct next round of qualification check via references. We will also assist the Agency in contract negotiation and development of contract performance matrix for monitoring and control.

Case Study: Water Management