Article 153. Example of the Advantage of a Relational Database
Mending Safety Nets with Technology
How a nonprofit start-up turned a process full of vertical hurdles into a client-centric safety net.
By Feather O’Connor Houstoun | September 9, 2009
Feather O’Connor Houstoun
is president of the William Penn Foundation, which is dedicated to improving the quality of life in the Greater Philadelphia region.
As a recovering public official who worked across many different program areas, I’ve marveled at how often we rationalize the continuation of practices that should have been augmented or replaced by technological advances. Sometimes the reason for missing an opportunity to innovate is limited resources, but more often it’s failure to look at the problem from a different perspective.
A broad re-envisioning of agencies’ responsibility to citizens can suggest innovation that guides technological applications to new purpose.
One successful example of this involves siloed eligibility determination processes. These processes operate across multiple federal and state agencies. Each agency — and sometimes a third party vendor — requires low-income applicants to locate the agency “window”, get the application, understand bureaucratic language, fill out the application, assemble the required documentary material, and often, to appear in person in order to finally be approved — or not.
This arrangement is repeated at each agency, requiring the same level of effort from the household, and requiring social workers at the direct service level to take inordinate amounts of time doing paperwork instead of providing services.
It is no wonder that a significant number of citizens do not receive the financial assistance Congress created for their benefit.
A multi-sector partnership, consisting of a state government, the federal government, and a start-up nonprofit, has transformed this cumbersome inefficient system into a streamlined process. Thanks to this stunning breakthrough, eligible but non-participating seniors are drawn toward benefits that could make a significant difference in their quality of life.
The nonprofit start-up, Benefits Data Trust, is the hub of a new outreach and enrollment system that combines a multi-agency back-office innovation with the individual agencies’ need to qualify applicants separately for each program. By cross-referencing information from federal, state, and private databases and membership rolls, it identifies individuals likely to be eligible but who are not receiving benefits. It then uses direct-marketing strategies to inform them that they may be eligible, and finally, supports them through the application process, often submitting the application on their behalf.
This is an example of using a Relational Database to store in one place the identification and address of an elderly or impaired individual such that the database allows a single enrollment for the person for several agencies. Each agency would require that the applicant fill out the paper work for each agency.
The method described above has been around for about twenty years it replaces the siloed eligibility determination used in multiple agency application programs. It uses a single centralized client Identification relational database to store a clients ID and address which can then be used for the processing of several agencies’ application programs. I use the same idea as that in the above article in the same way as one of the relational databases in my recommendation for a State Centralized IT Relational Database Management System RDMS.
I use this ID relational database to store all of the States households as input to many application programs: Medicaid, Driver’s Licenses, Voter Registration ID etc. I have recommended that the State RDMS be developed by a state IT or several states and funded by the Federal Government’s Dept. of Homeland Security. The ID RD can be linked together as a part of a national ID RDMS for the REAL ID mandate.
See my Articles:
Article 138. State Information Technology Centralized Data Centers
Article 142. Huge Savings from State Centralized Services
Article 143. Examples of a Relational Database Management System
Article 144. Why States Lose Millions by Using Obsolete Computer Systems
Article 145. The Coming Revolution in Information Technology Systems
