GOVERNMENT TECHNOLOGY/Data warehouses
With many cities and counties continuing to feel the sting of reduced local aid and decreasing tax revenues, operating budgets have become increasingly strapped. At the same time, the demand for health and human services has been exploding in recent years, forcing many cities and counties to look for new ways to meet the needs of their most vulnerable residents while reducing duplication and waste. Many are turning to technology tools to help manage services efficiently.
Often residents receive services — such as food stamps, subsidized childcare and mental health counseling — from multiple agencies and programs, but few local governments are aware of the redundancy. That is because each department or agency collects information in its own computer system and does not share or compare information with other departments. As a result, a single client or family may be receiving overlapping services from multiple agencies or departments at a high cost to the city or county.
Creating a data warehouse can help determine exactly how many residents are receiving services, how much overlap exists in agency client bases and how many agencies are assisting each person or family. That type of information can help caseworkers provide better service to clients. Also, it can help managers design better programs and allocate resources based on an accurate picture of the client population and needs. A data warehouse also can be instrumental in detecting cases of fraud and abuse.
The concept behind data warehousing is simple: take information from multiple computer systems using a data extraction tool, put the information in a common format, and place the information in a central database — or “data warehouse” — that can be used for analysis. Examples of popular extraction tools include Power Center by Redwood City, Calif.-based Informatica; Warehouse Builder by Redwood Shores, Calif.-based Oracle; Decision Stream by Ottawa, Ontario, Canada-based Cognos; and Data Stage by Westboro, Mass.-based Ascential. Data warehousing applications can be purchased through companies such as Oracle and Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft.
Data warehousing is particularly useful for cities and counties that act as “payers of last resort” for medical insurance and other programs. In that situation, the local governments benefit by tapping into the warehouse and identifying clients who could be enrolled in, and reimbursed by, federal, state and private third-party programs and insurance plans. A data warehouse can turn up missing pieces of information (from social security numbers, to case histories, to family relationships) that can be used to file reimbursement claims and enroll clients in additional federal and state programs to reduce the financial burden on cities and counties.
Government organizations should perform a thorough business analysis before starting a data-warehousing project because a significant effort is needed to clean up bad data and to design the data warehouse and reports. The effort will pay off, however, because in some cases, reimbursements from federal and state programs can pay for the entire project, while in other cases improvements in operations eventually can add up to large savings.
The author is president for Waltham, Mass.-based SEI Solutions.