Last week, INPUT joined the Public Forum on National Health Information Technology Policy where the likes of Aneesh Chopra, U.S. Chief Technology Officer, and David Blumenthal, National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, spoke about the value of protecting technology innovations in health care. Here are some highlights from their presentations:

Tech Industry Poised for Growth:

Chopra spoke on the role of the tech industry in health care emphasizing innovative and entrepreneurial activities along with promoting data sharing. He advocated the release and use of data, with hopes the entrepreneurs will come along, run with it and innovate. Chopra said, "I am open for business. Tell me what data you want and it's my responsibility to get it to you." He said the old government model was a tradeoff, it was either "our way or the highway" or to "just let it all happen and good luck my friend". He critiqued that those old models fell short and the new model is to focus on prioritization, transparency, engagement and rapid results. He presented on broad economic themes, reporting the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in Q4 saw a 5.7% showing, but there is early evidence of a technology recovery and health IT is among the growth areas for venture capital. Those venture capital investments in health IT rose 37% across 2009. He said the tech industry will be an engine of job creation and investment that will help in economic recovery. Chopra commented on President Obama's strategy to harness technology and innovation to transform the economy through Research and Development (R&D) investment, R&D commercialization, and tech infrastructure.

Meaningful Use Not a Tech Install:

Chopra displayed bountiful merriment and energy during his presentation shouting cheers of "MU!", which stands for meaningful use. While chairing a standards implementation group, he believes they've found a way to hear from people about what it really means to implement meaningful use. Look for a starter-kit group to host a meeting in March to further discuss. Blumenthal said meaningful use is a revolutionary concept of change management, and not a technology installation. Properly implemented, the balance between stretching and realistic requirements could catapult adoption. Blumenthal described an escalator concept for meaningful use; the regulation has an underlying concept of getting people on the escalator and moving them gradually along with assistance and support. The starting point for adoption rates is 2011 and Blumenthal thinks we'll see an upward slope of the adoption curve within a year or two. He described the stages and timeframe of meaningful use as:

• Stage 1 (2011): Emphasis on data collection in electronic form, communicating the information for actual exchange, and initiation of quality
• Stage 2 (2013): Process improvement, disease management
• Stage 3 (2015): Thinking more about outcomes

Stages 2 and 3 are just a conceptual framework and more specs are to come in future years. But Blumenthal said the stages of the meaningful use timeline do allow flexibility. Getting on the 'escalator' you can enter in stage 1 as late as 2014, through he warns you won't get as much money but you will be recognized and receive money for that year. The trade-off is that you will have had more time to prepare.

Conclusion:

We should soon see the Department of Health and Human Services announcing a series of grant awards to the tune of $693 million for extension centers, $564 million for health information exchanges, and $118 million for training. So it appears from both Chopra and Blumenthal's presentations that technology is up to the task and monies are on the way, but that the human factor remains the challenge in the rollout of health IT. Vendors will need to be prepared to break down those perceived barriers and to battle the uncertainty of return on investment with their solutions. The challenge for vendors will be to get their customers to accept that this is inevitable and is worth the cost of getting started.

GOVERNING magazine held its annual Outlook in the States and Localities conference on February 2-3, 2010. The conference, which took place at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. brought together both the public and private sectors as a thorough outlook of what is to come in 2010 was provided by a series of guest speakers who covered everything from the fiscal forecast to political races to watch. As a proponent of shared ideas and expert insight into the state and local arena, GOVERNING's 2010 Outlook, though bleak, still offered a plethora of opportunity for all industries working within current economic boundaries.

Day One of the conference began with City and County Concerns amidst a post-stimulus reality. Speakers for the first panel included Don Borut, Executive Director of the National League of Cities; Chris Hoene, Research Director of the National League of Cities; Larry Naake, Executive Director of the National Association of Counties; with moderator, e.Republic's Todd Sander.

A bleak picture was painted as localities were described by Chris Hoene to be heading into the eye of the storm. Hoene expanded his metaphor as he discussed the current budget shortfalls states and localities are facing and their remedies thus far which include layoffs and furloughs, the delay or cancellation of major projects, and even a revisiting of employee pensions and benefits. Hoene called for the need of transformational government, which Don Borut echoed as he discussed stimulus funds, and though helpful as they have been for states and localities, are scheduled to run out leaving local government entities to alleviate their own tension. Borut proposed a transformational government in which localities consolidate functionality and even the possibility of down-sizing and allowing citizens to take over functions governments once provided. The sole county representative on the panel, Larry Naake agreed with both Hoene and Borut's transformational ideas and highlighted issues like healthcare reform and immigration reform that must be addressed at the Federal level in order to alleviate the burden on counties. All three gentlemen, though pointing out a rather morbid time frame – anywhere from two to five years – for local recovery, concluded that in the midst of a tumultuous storm, opportunity can be found in the local governments' need to innovate and continue to provide their services with fewer resources.

Following City and County Concerns, was the Local Leadership Forum. Headlining the Forum were leaders Jon Dickinson, a Senior Policy Advisor to Mayor Bloomberg's Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability in New York City; Bill Schrier, Seattle's Chief Technology Officer; David Smith, County Manager of Maricopa County in Arizona; A.C. Wharton, Mayor of the City of Memphis; with Todd Sander once again as acting moderator.

Unlike the daunting concerns of the city and county panel before them, the leaders in the leadership forum took the opportunity to discuss current innovative initiatives taking place in their home localities, as well as providing their stance on the state and local environment. The leaders stressed the need for local governments to seize the opportunity found within the present crisis. Transformation was once again the word of the hour as the leaders shared their views on the need for government to reevaluate the services they currently provide and develop new methods of providing those services with reduced means. Mayor Wharton stressed that though it will be a good two to five years before states and localities are free of the burden of recession, localities should still plan and function as though recovery may arrive sooner. Bill Schrier took the opportunity of the forum to share his idea as to how a local government can perform the same services at limited cost: broadband. According to Schrier, advancing and expanding the sharing of information is the key for increased functionality in government as it opens doorways for constituents to provide the possible tools and information for government to run efficiently.

Following the Leadership Forum, conference participants were invited to join one of four roundtable discussions in the areas of Fiscal Forecast, Technology Trends, Sustainability Challenges, and Regional Initiatives. Within the Technology Trends Roundtable, led by Seattle Chief Technology Officer, Bill Schrier, participants were asked to provide a technological government need, as well as an innovation. Themes were revisited as participants discussed the need for government to consolidate in order to increase functionality and efficiency. Innovative remedies that were mentioned include business intelligence and project management tools, enterprise technology tools, and the more recent trend of cloud computing. Another innovative practice that was brought up in the Roundtable consisted of the notion of larger shared services, such as a Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) shared amongst multiple states.

As the first day of GOVERNING's Outlook drew to a close, it appeared the only ray of sunshine in the murky 2010 forecast is the notion of transformation, from which opportunity may arise.

Our Analysts' that monitor the State & Local Public Safety market could not be more busy with the influx of activity the new year has brought with regard to new projects and opportunities... It is always amazing to see the same Agencies that were dead-set in moving forward with implementations at the end of 2009, did not let the Holidays or the New Year stop their intents to consider their technology procurements, come January!

Accordingly, over the course of the past month, INPUT uncovered several new projects which highlight State's taking on Next Generation 911 (NG9-1-1) and Data Interoperability; while Localities are implementing similar solutions, including Surveillance, Mobile-Data and Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD). A sample of these projects are listed here:

• Kansas State Department – Next Generation 911 System
• Georgia Department of Administration – Dispatch / Records Management / Terminals
• Beaumont County, TX – Next Generation 911 System
• Shreveport, LA – Airport Security
• Warren County, KY -- Computer Aided Dispatch & Mobile Data Terminals

These are just a few examples of where Law Enforcement is considering their technology needs for 2010. The truth is, January proved to be one of the busiest months in recent memory for Public Safety research – in the process our Analyst's gained new insights into over 45 new Pre-RFP's Opportunities occurring across the United States – and as such we strongly encourage our Members to take advantage of establishing their keyword searches and Alerts to make sure they don't miss this flood of new business. For February were looking to add EVEN MORE to our Public Safety reporting and Opportunity databases, and we certainly look forward to your feedback, as we take on this process!

The Department of Labor doesn't typically jump to mind during discussions about innovation in the federal government IT marketplace. This may be changing, however, with the announcement late last week that Global Computer Enterprises (GCE) has just completed its implementation of the DOL onto GCE's financial management Shared Service Provider (SSP) system. With this announcement, the DOL becomes the first cabinet-level department to move a major internal operation onto a cloud platform. If statements by President Obama and Federal CIO Vivek Kundra are any indication, the DOL is blazing a trail into cloud computing that other federal agencies will soon follow.

The Obama administration is banking on cloud computing and other shared services initiatives to drive efficiencies and cut costs in government IT. Word out of the Federal CIO's office is that agencies will test the waters in FY 2010 by implementing cloud computing pilot programs before making a wholesale leap into the cloud. The transition of DOL's financial management system to a cloud platform, however, suggests that agencies might be ready to make larger-scale moves on their own and bypass the pilot testing phase. If so, this would support conclusions INPUT put forward in its recent report Emerging Technology Markets in the U.S. Federal Government, 2009-2014. More than half (54%) of the federal IT personnel INPUT surveyed stated that cloud computing was going to be a "high impact" technology solution in their enterprise. Nearly a quarter of those surveyed were already using a cloud solution of some kind, despite the fact that the security of data in the cloud was the overwhelming concern of 69% of respondents.

When faced with results like this, it is natural to ask if the feds are moving too fast. Are they damning the torpedoes and pushing forward with cloud adoption regardless of the possible ramifications? Vivek Kundra and NIST cloud expert Peter Mell (co-author of the federal government's definition of cloud computing) might answer "no", because in many cases the security surrounding vendor cloud solutions is better than that surrounding many of the stovepiped IT systems currently in use across government.

So, if data security isn't as big a concern as it has been made out to be, what does this suggest for the rate of cloud adoption by the federal government? INPUT takes Vivek Kundra at his word about moving federal agencies to the cloud. We forecast that the adoption of cloud computing across the federal government will surge over the next 5 years to become a $1.2 billion market. This is of course a small portion of the federal IT market (IT spending in the FY 2011 budget alone is $79.3 billion), but with cloud computing projected to experience a 27% CAGR by FY 2014, vendors selling to the federal government would be wise to add cloud-based solutions to their offerings. Customers like the DOL appear to be waiting for them and with federal IT dollars tightening, offering cloud-based solutions can help vendors maximize earnings during tough economic times.

If you've been reading INPUT's latest report on state and local investment in anti-waste, fraud, and abuse (WFA) solutions, you'll be familiar with Obama administration efforts to crackdown on "improper payments." (That's the fed's politically neutered term for "waste, fraud, and abuse.") As forecast in that report, President Obama's FY 2011 budget provides additional resources for this effort.

"$250 million in additional resources that...will help expand the Health Care Fraud Prevention and Enforcement Action Team (HEAT) initiative, a joint effort by the Departments of Health and Human Services and Justice," to reduce WFA in Medicare, Medicaid, and SCHIP.

The White House estimates up to $100 billion in improper payments annually. It's unclear whether this represents improper payments made only by federal agencies directly. However, INPUT has estimated up to $67 billion in annual improper payments made by state and local agencies administering funds for the five largest federal social services programs.

Four more items (quoting verbatim from the budget) :

• First, we will bring more transparency to these errors by creating an online dashboard of key indicators and statistics so that the public can access information on improper payments, view payment error rates by agency and program, and see a list of the most egregious actors.
• Second, we will hold agencies accountable for reducing improper payments while maintaining program access, through--among other steps--designating one Senate-confirmed appointee to be accountable to the President for meeting improper payment reduction targets and consolidating program integrity activities.
• Third, we will provide incentives for States, agencies, and recipients to report and reduce payment errors by using rewards--such as allowing States that reduce improper payments--to recoup more Federal grant dollars to cover administrative expenses, and use punishments, such as financial penalties on contractors who do not timely disclose an improper payment.
• Lastly, the Administration is launching the Partnership Fund for Program Integrity Innovation an initiative which focuses on improving service delivery, payment accuracy, and administrative efficiency in Federal assistance programs while reducing access barriers for beneficiaries.

We'll be watching that last point closely as it portends good things for state anti-WFA investments.

[Personal aside: I beg the Beltway elite to please not call this new Senate-confirmed appointee an "Improper Payments Czar."]

Here's another good one.

"When States have to finance high levels of UI improper payments, employers face higher taxes and workers may see cuts in their benefit levels. Despite the efforts of States to reduce improper payments, over $11.4 billion in UI benefits were erroneously paid in 2009--an overpayment rate of almost 10 percent. The Administration will tackle this problem by boosting funding for UI integrity efforts and proposing legislative changes that together would reduce improper payments by over $4 billion and employer tax evasion by $300 million over 10 years."

For those of you keeping score, you might recall that INPUT forecast $8.2 billion in WFA for UI in 2010. These federal stats put us over $3 billion under the mark for 2010. (And, I was worried our model assumed too much WFA in UI!) Either way, reliable statistics are hard to come by and I don't know the provenance of the $11.4 billion figure.

If UI WFA remained steady for the next ten years (unlikely if unemployment continues to climb) for a total of $114 billion, and we assume an optimistic timeline of four years to reach the reduction targets, the Obama administration would reduce UI WFA by around $60 billion (53%) over the ten years.

Anyhow, go download the budget and search for the term "improper payments" to get the full picture.

Last week,at the National Child Support Enforcement Association (NCSEA) Policy Forum and Training Conference, the final Session highlighted proposed ideas and directions for child support enforcement (CSE) for the upcoming year to facilitate improved services. Nancy Thoma Groetken, Regional Program Manager for the Department of Health and Human Services, Administration of Children and Families, Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE), revealed that modifications had been made towards objectives and that CSE would be more integrated, with the new strategies. A major component of the change involves expansion of the program along with the vision and mission. The strategies are expected to flow from OCSE's new mission: to enhance the well-being of children, and secure avenues in obtaining support for children, including financial and medical. Groetken made sure to point out that the program's mission, are still tentative, and could change as a result of federal health insurance and TANF Reauthorization legislation.

Collaboration was highly touted throughout the Policy Forum, and as a result, came as no surprise when incorporated in the strategic plan. The technique is for agencies to essentially combine services and resources as a way to enhance the quality of services and strengthen families. Particularly, since child support departments overlap with other agencies such as Employment, and Health, it only seems practical to join forces and share knowledge since a lot of their customers are the same. Pam McKee, Planning and Evaluation Manager of the Michigan Department of Human Services, Office of Child Support (DHS/OCS) shared how her department collaborated with their state's Medicaid and Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The agencies have several initiatives they all work on jointly, and utilize a "just in time" attitude, as McKee described. Michigan received a Special Improvement Project (SIP) grant which they used to develop a shared data view system with their Medicaid agency. The system developed cleanup reports that they were able to share amongst their counties. McKee stated that the state does not want to stop there, and will continue to make more efforts towards improving agency collaboration.

Other plans stressed for the future of CSE included the delivery of timely, clear and accessible services adapted to customer needs and circumstances. The use of electronic payment options was also highlighted, in addition to the idea that technology is essential in streamlining many CSE processes. Early intervention and proactive case management was also part of the future strategies including easier access to genetic testing for parents of kids born out of wedlock, and the design of case management tools and programs to ensure regular, consistent payments. Automation was also suggested as a way to manage case-closure effectively. Another interesting factor brought up, was the issue with currency exchange and electronic payments from state to state, and intricacies that ensue. Moreover, this would also be used when responding to cases on an international level as well.

Furthermore, with the new focus on cost-effectiveness and other performance measures to determine how well child support agencies are doing, technology is a key player for the future of CSE. Vendors should explore ways in which technology can be used to enhance the child support program's infrastructure that satisfy the CSE future goals and vision. With that being said, systems must be designed that guarantee efficiency, accountability, and quality case management in order to effectively assess performance and increase funding for further CSE initiatives.

The technique of using performance measures as a way to assess the quality in various child support programs and assist in levels of funding was another major topic examined in the 2010 National Child Support Enforcement Association (NCSEA) Policy Forum and Training Conference. It was argued that much of the child support enforcement (CSE) expenditure was not going towards cost-effective measures. The idea was that more support would be seen on the state and local level if more incentives were available. Performance measures would essentially be a way to provide evidence of the quality of work being done within these programs. David Stillman, IV-D Director of the Washington Division of Child Support, supported the idea stating that CSE should be a cost-effectiveness ratio exercised by child support workers. He emphasized the importance of CSE in families and how there should be a reflection of the impact. The idea of performance measures seemed to be a widely accepted theme in the conference even amongst tribal communities. Carleen Anderson, Council Member of the Colville Tribes stated that tribes are more than willing and happy to agree to performance measures. Her only was concern was that decision makers would be mindful and cognizant, in their evaluation, of their unique environment in which they do business, since it significantly differs from that of a state.

Performance could be evaluated in a variety of ways such as the outcomes of child support prevention programs, as seen in ones such as the Parenting and Paternity Awareness Program (PAPA) executed in Texas. Other performance measures could be evaluated with the help of technology. Many states are reconsidering the ways in which data from CSE is being incorporated into their systems, and making upgrades and modernizations accordingly. For example, Pam McKee, Planning and Evaluation Manager of the Michigan Department of Human Services, Office of Child Support (DHS/OCS), revealed a few technology challenges her state had overcome. She stated that recent system changes enabled streamlining of medical support, payment process screens and data exchanges. McKee also revealed that her state's shared agency data view system, developed for cleanup reports, is currently experiencing technical problems and is being considered for revisions.

A representative from New York, Lee Sapienza, Chief of Policy, Planning and Data Analysis shared information about their state's IV-D system that interfaced with Medicaid and the (IV-D) program. The state had experienced problems with the system, including cases where there were no distinguishing codes for Medicaid services, which led to an influx of broad-ranged referrals. A system was then developed, that aligned more with the characteristic codes, in which numbers are run on a nightly basis. The system also assists in notifying the Medicaid program when they get private health insurance in Medicaid-related cases, in which Medicaid does additional matching. Sapienza stated that the state may make more upgrades to the system that will incorporate an interface that includes federal notifications as well.

Kim Newsom Bridges, Executive Director for the Ohio CSEA Director's Association, shared how Ohio had recommendations in July 2008, for improving their CSE system that would get their software up to speed. Bridges stated that the state was doing a fairly good job of getting their child support program into the implementation stage and that the main motivation for making the revisions, and as quickly as possible, was to reach cost-effective solutions and alleviate financial challenges.

Other initiatives to increase efficiencies, discussed in the Policy Forum included the idea that there must be a more uniform process for processing clients and managing cases, and essentially the development of a simplifies system across the state. States seemed to uphold these ideas including San Diego California, who just received a lot of stimulus funds, and plans to move to an electronic interface between TANF and CSE. Further, Louisiana plans on building out an interface that will utilize data-driven decisions and facilitate capacity in their CSE caseloads.

The 2010 National Child Support Enforcement Association (NCSEA) Policy Forum and Training Conference, was held January 25-27, 2010 in Washington, DC. NCSEA serves child support professionals, agencies, and strategic partners worldwide through professional development, communications, public awareness, and advocacy to enhance the financial, medical, and emotional support that parents provide for their children. The Policy Forum and Training Conference held annually, is a way for the child support community and partners to come together and discuss major issues in Congress and new ways of practice implemented throughout the nation. The theme of the Policy Forum this year was, "The Changing Faces of Families".

The main focus of the conference revolved around shifting the Child Support Program's (CSP) vision, towards avenues such as prevention, agency-collaboration and advancements in technology. The Conference brought in professionals and representatives from each state with varying subject matter expertise. The Conference consisted of seven Plenarys where a panel of representatives shared insight on various issues from policy changes affecting the Child Support Program to collaboration and implementation strategies states should be taking into consideration.

The Conference began with a general overview of child support, highlighting current issues. Much attention was paid to the verity that the spotlight must ultimately be placed on the child. Emphasis went towards the importance of child support in low-income custodial families and the reality of CSE reaching more people when compared to any other program. The first plenary also spoke about what the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Reauthorization would mean for CSE. Funding seemed to be a key concern for CSE, in which having enough money to execute the bill was a burning matter. Attention was given on the need for improvement with TANF, a program in dire need of increased funds. Surprisingly enough, funding for TANF has not increased since 1996, and states have responded to this by holding on to funds in order to prolong its use. The lack of funding provided through TANF disallows execution of programs designated for training and education. The Plenary went on further to talk about how TANF must be the entry point for parents to access jobs, trainings, and strategies, and how techniques must be explored to align program goals.

Yvette Riddick, Deputy Director from the Division of Policy for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Child Support Enforcement, (DHHS/ACF/OSCE) stated the mission of the Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) was to locate parents, establish paternity and enforce orders. OCSE serves as a gateway to these services for 1 in 4 kids in the country.

Riddick highlighted Six Domains that must be considered in the improvement CSE:

1. Prevention
2. Engagement of Fathers from Birth
3. Economic Stability Strategies
4. Health Family Relations
5. Healthcare Coverage
6. Family Violence Collaboration

Other issues on OSCE's radar for 2010 included termination of the $25 Child Support Collection fee, deeming it unfair, and the costs of births under the Medicaid Program.

This morning at 10am, half a dozen INPUT analysts sat waiting for the President's 2011 Budget Request to be posted. Toggling back and forth between the Office of Management and Budget and the Government Printing Office's websites, we saw the documents being posted one by one. After lamenting the fact that sadly, this is what makes research analysts giddy in the morning, we began poring through the budget documents to get a sense of priorities, cuts and surprises.

We're still at work (and will continue to be for the weeks to come), but I thought I'd share some of the highlights:

Total Budget:$3.8T

Total Discretionary Budget: $1.4T

Top 10 Department Base Discretionary Funding (with % increase/decrease over FY10 enacted funding):

1. Defense - $548.9B (+3%)
2. Health and Human Services - $83.5B (-1%)
3. Transportation - $77.6 (+2%)
4. State - $58.6 (+16%)
5. Veterans Affairs - $57.0B (+7%)
6. Education - $49.7B (+6%)
7. DHS - $43.6B (+11%)
8. HUD - $41.6B (-5%)
9. Energy - $28.3B (+7%)
10. Agriculture - $23.9B (-4%)

The administration also identified $72M in savings from various activities such as streamlining administrative support, using more videoconferencing capabilities, powering off computers, and (my favorite) "Optimizing Cellular Airtime."

This round of releases did not include OMB's Exhibit 53, Report on Information Technology, however the total IT funding request is $79.4B (excluding legislative, judicial, intel and government-run organizations, which we include in our forecast). We also have a glimpse into some of the IT priorities, which include:

INPUT's Federal Industry Analysis team is hard at working analyzing the budget request. Check back soon for a more detailed report.

The state and local health care and social services industries started off the first month of the New Year with feverish intensity--from outlining plans for statewide health information exchange (HIE) projects to engaging in Women, Infant, and Children (WIC) Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) state feasibility studies. Despite lingering budget deficits that will continue to impact the upcoming fiscal year, some states are still able to move forward with information technology (IT) projects that are revenue generating and/or more cost effective.

Around the industry, January brought forth two major business agreements. Accenture and Oracle have joined forces to develop integrated software packages to address the needs of state social services agencies and their rising workloads. The collaborative child welfare case management solution is based in part on Oracle's Siebel CRM Public Sector Case Management commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) product, Oracle's Policy Automation rules engine, and Accenture's current child welfare solutions. The second business deal was Unisys agreeing to sell its health information management business to Molina Healthcare for $135 million. The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2010. Unisys currently contracts with several states, including West Virginia and New Jersey, providing Medicaid Management Information Systems (MMIS) and fiscal agent services. This is an interesting transaction, as Molina is a managed care provider. In other news, the California Regional Health Information Organization (CalRHIO) will be closing its doors after a failed attempt to be named the state designated entity. The state has elected to create a new entity to lead it's HIE efforts. And midmonth the federal U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) released the proposed rule for the provider electronic health record (EHR) incentive program. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is currently accepting comments from stakeholders on all issues set forth in the proposed rule.

INPUT released two blogs for the 2010 top initiatives in both the health care and social services sectors. The health care line-up exceeds an estimated $780 million in potential contracting opportunities and includes projects such as the highly anticipated New York Medicaid Management Information System and the Oklahoma HIE. On the social services side, investments total an estimated $243 million in IT spending. Topping the list is the California Child Support Maintenance and Operations project, as well as, the Florida Unemployment Compensation Modernization initiative. In addition, INPUT hosted a webinar on statewide HIEs and the $564 million in economic stimulus funding that is being used to accelerate network implementation efforts. Slides and the recording can be downloaded here.

Below is some notable contracting activity:

• The New York Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) released the Child Care and Attendance Payment System Request for Proposals (RFP) in the beginning of the month.
• The Ohio Health Information Partnership (OHIP) released a Request for Information (RFI) seeking information on full service HIE solutions that best fit the state's requirements.
• Iowa's Department of Public Health released an RFI for the development of a Business and Financial Plan for Iowa e-Health. Responses are due by February 16, 2010.
• The State of Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development released a RFP for the Procurement of Vendor Services to Assist the Southeast Consortium in Conducting a Study to Define and Evaluate a Planned Approach to Collaboratively Develop an Unemployment Insurance (UI) Benefit System and to Present Findings of this Study. To review the forecasted UI Benefit System please go here.
• Capgemini Government Solutions, LLC was awarded the Unemployment Insurance Modernization contract with the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR) in the amount of $27,943,902.
• The California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) awarded ACS State Healthcare, LLC the MMIS and fiscal agent contract. The contract is valued at $1.4 billion.
• The Minnesota Department of Human Services confirmed they awarded the Food Stamps EBT contract to eFunds. The contract will run from May 1, 2010, to April 30, 2015.