Highlights include:
- $457 million California Medicaid Management Information System expansion and upgrade project kicks off this week.
- DHCS IT project portfolio amounts to about $1 billion.
- DHCS was the first to issue a BYOD (bring your own device) smart phone policy with 125 department executives currently participating. The initiative saves between $250,000 and $300,000 annually.
- Department mobility plan expanded to include iPads
- Over the next 18 to 24 months, DHCS is embarking on a new telework program, rolling out a virtual desktop interface that will allow staff to work anytime and any place.
- Next March, the department will be adopting an email cloud system that includes replacing all of the department’s 350 Blackberry devices with iPhones.
- Biggest challenge?: Recruiting and retaining IT leaders.
- Mantra: “What gets measured gets managed.”
- What’s next?: The DHCS IT Strategic Plan, which includes an annual performance review, is coming out in the next couple of weeks.
- Secret of your success?: “Continuity. You need to have continuity across your organization and you need to bring in people and you need to retain those people and keep them long term.”
