In our research announcement on theories of change (ToC) for digital government, the Digital Service Network shared our belief that all Digital Service (DS) teams should work to develop a ToC.
Minnesota is a good example of an organization that started small in its drive to integrate benefits programs. For instance, its recent statewide rollout of its online integrated benefit application website, MNbenefits.mn.gov, started as a pilot in 2020 with Code for America. The pilot encompassed two counties including Hennepin County, where Minneapolis is located. The pilot later expanded to four counties, then 16 and a tribal nation. The final roll out, which took 12 months to implement, included the state’s 87 counties and three tribal nations.
AI resources for public professionals on responsible AI use, including a course showcasing real-world applications of generative AI in public sector organizations.
This report outlines state Medicaid program priorities, including expanding access to services, addressing health disparities, and implementing cost-containment measures amid post-pandemic uncertainties.
The Policy2Code Prototyping Challenge explored utilizing generative AI technology to translate U.S. government policies for public benefits into plain language and code, culminating in a Demo Day where twelve teams showcased their projects for feedback and evaluation.
The team developed an AI solution to assist benefit navigators with in-the-moment program information, finding that while LLMs are useful for summarizing and interpreting text, they are not ideal for implementing strict formulas like benefit calculations, but can accelerate the eligibility process by leveraging their strengths in general tasks.
The team explored using LLMs to interpret the Program Operations Manual System (POMS) into plain language logic models and flowcharts as educational resources for SSI and SSDI eligibility, benchmarking LLMs in RAG methods for reliability in answering queries and providing useful instructions to users.
In December 2024, the Digital Benefits Network released an updated open dataset on authentication and identity proofing requirements across various public benefits applications to highlight best practices and areas for improvement in identity management.
