This blog post discusses strategies that states can implement to make public assistance applications more accessible during the COVID-19 crisis, emphasizing the importance of flexibility in application processes to accommodate increased demand and social distancing measures.
Digital service (DS) teams across the public sector are working to improve how services are delivered to residents. These teams exist at all levels of government and are iteratively using data, technology, and human-centered design to reframe how residents interact with government.
This FormFest profile highlights how the Colorado Behavioral Health Administration redesigned its complaint submission form using empathy, human-centered design, and trauma-informed research methods to make the process more accessible, compassionate, and secure for all users.
This FormFest profile spotlights the New Jersey State Office of Innovation’s Feedback Widget team, which collects resident input across state websites to improve services and empower agencies to act on real-time feedback.
“Interoperability” refers to systems’ ability to interact with each other to share data so that a customer is connected with as many benefits as possible in an efficient way. The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was originally intended to be interoperable, but this has not occurred yet. Promoting interoperability in the ACA is imperative, as it would help alleviate food insecurity through automatic benefits enrollment.
MITRE developed the Comprehensive Careers and Supports for Households (CCASH™) tool to help individuals understand and manage federal benefits and employment services, transitioning from a consumer-focused tool to a policy analytics system. By integrating data from sources like the U.S. Census and the Policy Rules Database, MITRE created a model that allows users to analyze and compare benefits eligibility across states, supporting evidence-based policymaking.
