Event spotlight: 2019 IT Solutions Management Conference

A premier event for state health and human service agencies, the 2019 IT Solutions Management (ISM) Annual Conference featured innovative solutions around modernization and digital transformation, with the end goal always tied back to better serving communities. This year, the conference was held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and had a regionally appropriate theme of “Brewing Innovative Solutions.”

The main topics on tap were around data security, cloud technologies, Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) practices, interdepartmental sharing of data, and a more personalized consistutent experience for citizens utilizing state services. There were also more general sessions around leadership, ethics, and the duties states have in providing the best solutions for their citizens.

The areas fermenting for many of the participants were around working through data quality and data management issues that are still regularly occurring. This happens through normal data entry but has been exacerbated in recent years as agencies open more web portals for citizens to enter their own information. As agencies try to share data, they often find that information is contained in different values and formats. Nearly all the people we spoke with were encountering challenges with their data, whether they acted in an IT role or were part of the groups looking to use this data for a variety of reasons.

At Experian, we pour ourselves into data quality and were able to discuss several of the solutions that we already bring to government agencies around standardizing, verifying, and deduplicating data in CCWIS implementations, data modernization projects, and in general, ongoing data quality initiatives. We can’t stress enough how taking care of these foundational aspects of data is the first and best step to any data project.

As we drank in another ISM conference, we can see the progress that state agencies are making in continuing their understanding of how data is the lifeblood of their organizations and how data quality is keeping their BAC (“Big Data Accuracy Content”) within legal limits. Cheers!

Better service of communities can start with having the right data regarding your constituents.

Learn more about data quality and CCWIS