The Department of Health Care Services, in a push to increase efficiency and save money with the use of modern technologies, has set a goal for implementation of a cloud email system, a comprehensive smartphone policy and virtual work environment by March 2013, Chief Information Officer Chris Cruz said in an interview.
Extending some pilot programs and rolling out new solutions will allow the department to show "huge cost savings and reductions" by this time next year, according to Cruz.
Chris Cruz, CIO, Department of Health Care Services
One of the changes the department has already started implementing came in response to Gov. Brown’s executive order to reduce the number of state paid mobile devices, Cruz said. One hundred employees who volunteered for the pilot program turned in state paid Blackberries then used their own Androids and iPhones with an AT&T provided application, the GOOD solution, which allowed for the necessary security restrictions.
Eliminating the cost of buying blackberries, paying monthly fees and other incidentals, Cruz estimated the annual savings of moving to employee owned devices at $330,000 and said the department hopes to increase savings when more employees are put on the policy. The program is the first of its kind, marking a significant milestone for state government, according to Cruz.
"As we move forward, one of our goals over the next year&hellipis that we’re going to do away with Blackberries completely and we’re going to offer Android or iPhones as a personal cell phone of record and then come up with a stipend policy to augment the policy we have today," Cruz said.
The department will also change email systems, moving to the Microsoft CES Cloud Solution, leveraging cloud solutions already provided by the state. Smartphone users will use the active synch components while a small group of employees who manage personal health information will continue using the GOOD solution application, Cruz said.
Beginning April 1, Health Care Services will also move forward with a desktop virtualization policy, allowing some employees to work from approved devices that can access everything on their department desktop. The change will allow employees to access information and get the job done "anywhere, anytime, anyplace," according to Cruz.
"We’re hoping that down the line we can get the majority of the department teleworking," Cruz said. "We think that by adopting a department policy as we move additional staff into these buildings we can possibly close the other buildings down the line ."
With employees teleworking a few days a week and several employees sharing one cubicle and one desktop computer, the policy will reduce the department’s carbon footprint by cutting the number of employees coming in to the office each day and reduce the office space the department needs to pay for, Cruz said.
"We expect the savings to be significant," he said.
Eventually, the department will work toward full virtualization, saving millions in computer costs. This year alone, the department saved $1.2 million in PC refresh costs because of the mobility policy, Cruz said.
