Georgia Human Services Achieves HigherPerformance with SHINES

Executive SummaryAccenture teamed with the GeorgiaDepartment of Human Services and theDivision of Family and Children Servicesto develop a robust, Web-based casemanagement application that helps theagency and its caseworkers enhance service delivery to children and familiesthroughout the state. The new child welfare application replaces time-con-suming paperwork and repetitive dataentry to help the agency move towardhigh performance with improved dataquality. The results have included better outcomes for children, greatereffectiveness for staff and improvedaccountability to community stakeholders.

Client BackgroundAs one of the largest agencies in thestate, the Georgia Department of HumanServices draws upon 10,000 employeesand a budget of $1.8 billion to managehuman service programs in all 159 counties throughout the state. Under the Department of Human Services, theDivision of Family and Children Services(DFCS) investigates child abuse, finds foster homes for abused and neglectedchildren, and provides support servicesand programs to help troubled families.

Georgia’s ability to meet the needs of its citizens depends on the agency’s dedicated frontline staff. Case managersinvestigated approximately 28,000 reportsof child maltreatment in state fiscal year 2009, and more than 7,000 childrenare in the legal custody of DFCS eachmonth. These case managers encounternumerous challenges on a daily basis andprovide customized and comprehensiveservices to improve safety, permanencyand well-being.

Business ChallengeDFCS case managers spend considerableamounts of time in the field visitingclients as well as attending court andmedical appointments, which results inthe collection of large amounts of infor-mation. For years, case managers had

been serving children and families using a number of legacy systems and paperrecords. These practices resulted in inefficiencies such as duplicate data entry,conflicting data and the need to wait for hard copies of case files to arrive viamail or fax. The dependency on a paper-intensive system also meant a greateradministrative burden for case managersand hampered information sharing acrosscounty offices and between agencies.

Georgia recognized that in order toachieve its goal of high performance, thedevelopment of a statewide, automatedchild welfare system would serve as acomprehensive case management supporttool for the agency’s more than 3,700users. To meet the needs of its staff andto deliver on its mission, Georgia set sev-eral objectives for the system, including: • Improve efficiency and effectiveness byreducing paperwork and redundant dataentry, allowing case managers to spendmore time working with families andchildren.

• Improve access to information andtools that would support consistentpolicy and practice standards across thestate.

• Facilitate timely and quality case decisions and actions by providingalerts and accurate information, including other agency programs and prior histories.

• Provide consistent and accurate datamanagement to improve reportingcapabilities, accountability, workloaddistribution and case review requirements.

• Establish integrated payment processesand procedures for tracking servicesavailable and provided to children, andaccurately paying for those services.

Through a competitive bid process, thestate selected Accenture as the primarycontractor. The contract with Accenturewas signed after receiving a seal ofapproval by the U.S. Department of Healthand Human Services’ Administration forChildren and Families.

How Accenture HelpedIn 2007, the State launched GeorgiaSHINES, a Web-based statewide auto-mated child welfare information system,designed to integrate child welfare casemanagement information into one systemfor case workers to more effectively manage, track and share case information.Accenture was responsible for the design,development, and implementation of thenew system serving as primary contractorand collaborating with a host of vendorsincluding Oracle/Sun and Software AG(Web Methods).

While the state of Georgia had facedmany challenges in the past trying toimplement a statewide system, the jointefforts of the state and Accenture teamenabled implementation of the system inless than 20 months. The effort includedbringing together system functionalityfrom multiple county-based systems intoa single statewide system. Workingtogether with county leadership and State Project Leadership, the Accentureteam implemented a system that providesstandard statewide processes and customizable workflows that meet stateand county requirements.

The new system also provides case managers with remote access to casefiles, reducing the need to complete tasksin the office. Through SHINES, case managers can complete major functionalareas of their work, including intakes,investigations, placements, foster case eligibility determinations, reunifications,adoptions, financial management,resource management and reporting.SHINES also improves integration acrossrelated social services programs throughautomated interfaces with the courts,Medicaid eligibility, financial processesand child support.

The Georgia SHINES system is based on aJ2EE N-Tier platform chosen for its provenperformance and reliability as well as itscompatibility with the agency’s other J2EEapplications. Accenture brought extensive

J2EE experience and strong alliance relationships with multiple platform vendors to implement the best-of-breedsolution for the state of Georgia.

The solution delivered many benefits necessary for today’s large-scale,statewide systems implementations. These benefits include:• Extensibility—Enables ease of implementation of future system modifications as user requirements or policies change;

• Portability—Facilitates compatibilitywith multiple vendor platforms as eachagency has its unique vendor needs;

• Scalability—The architecture providesmultiple options to build additionalcapacity to manage increased usertransactions as system volume require-ments increase over time; and

• Reliability—Provides failover at everytier of the system in case of hardware,software or other failure.

High Performance DeliveredIn September 2007, Georgia SHINES went live in Douglas County, a suburb of Atlanta. In June 2008, SHINES wasfully implemented throughout the state.Subsequent to full statewide deploymentof SHINES, Accenture has worked withDFCS to implement several significantenhancements to the core case manage-ment system including:• Vendor Portal—A vendor portal has beenimplemented that supports direct entryof case notes by private provider staffserving children in care. This capability improves the accuracy ofcase records and improves collaborationbetween DFCS case managers and vendor staff.

• National Youth in Transition Reporting—Enhanced youth outcome measure-ment is supported through assessmentsof long-term outcomes achieved byyouth as they transition to adulthood.This capability provides DFCS with datanecessary to improve program perform-ance while youth are still in care.

• Business Intelligence—Accenture has worked with DFCS to implement business intelligence software to notjust track progress and display it ondashboards, but also to guide actionsand change the likely outcome before ithappens. The resulting capability, calledLENSES, provides a view into key childabuse prevention measures that allowsusers to drill into the real-time data,identify specific cases and take actionbefore the measurement period is complete. The reports LENSES helpsgenerate also include key processanalysis to allow supervisors and man-agement to identify cases that are notmeeting a specific goal, and what isholding up the case or where it is beingdelayed, giving LENSES the addedpower of actionable data. This includesthe capability to “push” report detailsto mobile phones used by leadership—toconnect them to outcome measures.

Accenture continues to support theSHINES system and seeks to drive furthervalue from the investment Georgia has made in technology. Through theSHINES system, DFCS is better equipped to monitor children under state supervision, establishing a stronger foundation for improved child welfareoutcomes. Benefits include:

Better outcomes for children:• Supports quality decision making by allowing staff easier and timelyaccess to case plans, histories, notesand actions.

• Improves tracking and data sharingacross the state.

• Helps case managers identify fosterhomes and community resources available to meet a child’s needs.

• Offers prompts and alerts when actionsare due, enabling case managers andsupervisors to manage cases more efficiently.

• Provides instant access to comprehen-sive automated case files, minimizingdelays due to location or role.

Greater effectiveness for case managers:• Reduces manual paperwork and repetitive data entry, allowing moretime to work with families.

• Offers a Web-based solution with 24hour, seven-day-a-week availabilityallowing staff to work wherever accessto the agency intranet is available.

• Automates application of policy and procedures, making the applicationof policy less complex and easier to follow.

• Streamlines procedures for requestingand obtaining approval for service andpayment authorization.

• The LENSES outcome measurement toolhas enabled DFCS to reduce overdueinvestigations from up to 800 permonth to fewer than 50 per month;resulting reduced recidivism and casemanager visits with children in fostercare are among the best in the nation,ramping up from an average 70 percentper month to more than 90 percentevery month.

Improved accountability to children andcommunity partners:• Enhances communication and information sharing across county lines and with community partners.

• Provides management visibility for casestatus and online approvals of criticalcase actions.

• Strengthens integration across relatedprograms through automated interfaceswith payment, eligibility and court systems.

• Provides opportunity for greater accu-racy, transparency and oversight into thechild welfare system through improvedreporting and tracking capabilities.

According to Patrick Moore, Georgia’s CIOand executive director of the GeorgiaTechnology Authority, SHINES is “one ofthe biggest successes we’ve seen so far.”He adds, “We’re really starting to see thebenefit of having the visibility becausethe maturity of the project managementprocess has improved in the state.”

About AccentureAccenture is a global managementconsulting, technology services and outsourcing company, withapproximately 211,000 people servingclients in more than 120 countries.Combining unparalleled experience,comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions,and extensive research on the world’smost successful companies, Accenturecollaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues ofUS$21.6 billion for the fiscal yearended Aug. 31, 2010. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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