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Edited By Bob Monn and Shelagh Taylor
Claims Service Delivery Project
Other News:
-- Washington Pioneers Digital Certificate Technology
-- Washington's social services get perfect score in 2001 Digital State Survey
-- Gary Robinson appointed as Acting Director of DIS
June 14, 2001 IPMA Board Meeting
--by Kris Masten, Project Manager, Department of Labor and Industries
The Department of Labor & Industries Claims Administration Program provides workers’ compensation protection to all covered workers and employers in Washington. The program manages approximately 180,000 claims each year, paying benefits for medical costs and lost wages and providing service to 1.8 million workers, 160,000 employers and 25,000 health care and vocational rehabilitation providers.
If you have spent any time at the Labor & Industries headquarters building, you might have noticed staff pushing chairs with boxes overflowing with manuals. If you had followed them, you would have found that they were new claim managers on their way to training classes. If you had looked at a seasoned claim manager’s many manuals, you would have found them to be dog-eared and full of sticky notes, highlighting, tabs and handwritten references to other documents.
Claim managers’ need to learn and then stay apprised of an ever-changing voluminous amount of procedures, policies, laws, administrative codes, court rulings, etc. The volume and complexity of the documents made it extremely time-consuming and nearly impossible for an individual to keep up with ongoing updates. Even if the hard copy manuals were kept up to date, researching an issue was extremely difficult because of the sheer volume of information and the lack of adequate tools for quickly locating relevant information. Managing the information was becoming overwhelming. We needed a better system.
We began looking for a way to reduce research time, make the vast amount of information available online, reduce labor costs involved with managing the information and reduce the overall cost of maintaining the manuals. We needed an electronic document management system that would provide powerful searching and cross-referencing capabilities and allow the end user to personalize their copies of documents. In addition, we desired a browser-based thin client solution that could reside on the Intra/Internet. The solution was an integration of FileNet’s Panagon backend document repository that provides the management and retrieval of documents, and Enigma’s Insight front end user interface that provides end user features and functionality including highlighting, sticky notes and bookmarks.
The resulting On-line Reference System allows documents to be easily posted to the system by the document administrator. Once checked in, they are automatically published and immediately available to Labor & Industries staff. Users can find documents by using the electronic table of contents or a search function that includes advanced search capabilities such as Wildcard, Soundex, Boolean and synonym searches. The documents then can be viewed online or printed, and personalized by the end user with sticky notes, highlighting or bookmarks.
The end results of the project are dramatic. In a very real sense, the large amounts of information have been transformed into more than just a collection of unwieldy manuals. They have become a comprehensive web of information that can be personalized to meet the individual’s needs. Powerful search and cross-referencing capabilities allow staff to do their work more efficiently with greater accuracy. L&I reference information is now available via the Intranet, making the system a "virtual" on-line library unconstrained by time or location.
--Compiled by Bob Monn and Shelagh Taylor
Washington again finds itself in a leadership role when it comes to digital technology. In an article in the May issue of Governing.com, Washington and Illinois are identified as the two states that have "jumped into the game" when it comes to the use of digital certificate technology. Washington is an early adopter of digital certificate technology, using it to secure several online services. The article references a Tacoma attorney who uses a digital certificate to gain online access to the Department of Labor and Industries files to check the status of workers’ compensation cases. While Washington continues to expand digital certificate use, other states have been slower to move to digital certificate technology. See the complete story (Link no longer available).
Note: The following is a June 5, 2001 news release from the Office of the Governor.
Washington is well on its way to proving once again that it leads the other 49 states in providing excellent Internet-based government services to its citizens, Gov. Gary Locke announced.
Washington's social services scored a perfect 100 in first-round results of the 2001 Digital State Survey, which eventually leads to the prestigious Digital State Award.
That survey is conducted by the Center for Digital Government in conjunction with Government Technology magazine and the Progress & Freedom Foundation.
Washington shares the top position in the social services category with Kansas.
The nation's three-time and only Digital State award-winner, Washington is off to another strong start in the four-part survey in which national policy and technology experts evaluate how well state governments use technology to improve service delivery to citizens.
"Washington leads the nation in delivering state government services through the Internet," said Gov. Gary Locke. "Our agencies work hard to bring citizens powerful digital tools to help them get off the road and out of line through easy desktop access to information and key services."
Multiple state agencies share credit for the top rating by building new online services that support the disadvantaged, the unemployed and the elderly. The Department of Social and Health Services, for example, contributed electronic benefit transfer (EBT) systems and smart cards for benefits delivery.
"Innovative use of technology is one of the very effective ways we are integrating services -- making it easy for our clients to get the right service on the first try," said DSHS Secretary Dennis Braddock. "We really care about the people we serve and are hard at work on our No Wrong Door initiative that will help transform our service delivery to the public."
Employment resources are another important element of Washington's online portfolio of social services, including the Employment Security Department's wide range of Web-enabled services to help citizens find jobs and claim unemployment insurance.
"The public expects more and more options, including convenient services on the Internet, and we've moved quickly over the past year to provide these services," said Employment Security Commissioner Sylvia Mundy. "We are now a national leader in taking unemployment insurance claims over the net and have built a WorkSource Web-based system with more than 18,000 in-state jobs to help those claimants get back to work. In just the past month, jobseekers used the WorkSource site nearly 100,000 times, double the number a year ago."
Round one in the Digital State Survey also includes the category of Law Enforcement and the Courts, in which Washington placed among the top 10 states. This category benchmarks use of digital technologies by the judicial system, including online access to court opinions, the use of digital communications by police agencies and the availability of digital signature capability for contracts and filings.
Paul Taylor, deputy director of the Department of Information Services, attributes Washington's success to determined collaboration. "We have learned that the power to transform counter-bound, stovepipe thinking into public service for the Internet Age is the outcome of dynamic partnerships among agencies, information technology professionals, private industry and constituents," Taylor said.
The survey concludes in December when an overall final score is tallied. The state achieving the top ranking in all four parts of the yearlong survey will receive the Digital State award, which has become a symbol of excellence and innovation in technology.
On June 12, the Governor's Office announced the appointment of Gary Robinson as Acting Director of the Department of Information Services (DIS). Gary most recently has been Assistant Director for Forecasting and Information Systems at the Office of Financial Management (OFM). A national search will be conducted to find a replacement for Steve Kolodney who left DIS for the private sector. See related story.
Members Present: Jim Albert, Mary Ellen Bradley, Thomas Bynum, Phil Grigg, Sheryl Hall, Dennis Jones, Dennis Laine, Mike McVicker, Bob Monn, Darrell Riffe, Doug Tanabe, and Shelagh Taylor
Mary Ellen Bradley, IPMA Chair, opened the June meeting of the IPMA Board of Directors at 7:30 a.m.
REPORTS:
Secretary/Treasurer: The minutes from the May 10, 2001 Board meeting were approved.
Thomas Bynum presented the May 2001 financial status and activities reports. The Board approved the reports.
Business Planning: No report.
Executive Seminar: Phil Grigg reported that there were 20-25 registrants for the 2001 Executive Seminar as of yesterday. Board members were encouraged to get their staff registered.
Phil noted an approaching deadline of Skamania Lodge for dropping rooms; the Board decided to maintain the current level. Phil stated that Representative Ruderman will be contacted and requested to speak at the 2001 seminar.
The Board decided to hold the 2002 Executive Seminar at Campbell's Resort in Chelan in the first week in October. The existing booking at the Shilo in Ocean Shores would be released.
The Board also discussed a proposal from Gartner Group to partner with IPMA to co-sponsor an August 2 event in Olympia featuring Len Bergstrom, Senior VP, Measurement Sales. The discussion was generally favorable and Dennis Jones was asked to explore Gartner's definition of "partnering".
Forum: Jim Albert presented a written status report on Forum 2001. He noted that the main complaint from vendors was the lack of a hospitality suite for networking. A proposal for a Forum Planning Committee debriefing lunch (Budd Bay or Anthony's) was presented to the Board and approved.
Professional Development: Sheryl Hall reported that the contract with Saint Martin's College for bi-monthly events through 2002 had been signed. She noted that working with Saint Martin's has been great. She also reported that the Committee had met with all the panelists for the June 28 event and that reservations are up to 36.
Communications: Bob Monn reported that the June newsletter had been completed. He also noted that he was working on a generic web-based event registration process to support the Executive Seminar and Professional Development.
NEW BUSINESS:
It was noted that Gary Robinson had been named Acting Director of the Department of Information Services.
The meeting was adjourned at approximately 8:30 a.m.
IPMA, P.O. Box 1943, Olympia, WA 98507-1943