Daman Supports Funding Rationale for HHSC Data Warehouse

With an annual budget of $16 billion and 9,300 employees, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) provides oversight for the state’s health and human services agencies and programs. In addition, HHSC directly administers programs that provide assistance to low-income Texans.

Recently, the HHSC recognized the need to build an enterprise-wide data warehouse for supporting both strategic decision making and operational improvements within the HHSC environment, supporting Medicaid in particular. The HHSC received approval for federal financial participation from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for the first stage of planning for a Medicaid-focused Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW). Shortly thereafter, the HHSC retained Daman to develop functional business requirements in support of further funding requests from CMS and to support the future development of the EDW.

Careful Assessment of Needs and Requirements

The Daman team was charged with conducting a wide range of research, assessment, data collection and analysis activities. These included a comprehensive assessment of the HHSC environment, opportunity identification and targeting, and requirements packaging and valuation. Daman professionals also provided a scenario refinement and value statement, as well as a cost-benefit analysis with quantified benefits and a full template for costs.

The requirements-gathering exercise involved all Texas HHSC agencies. Although the primary focus was on Medicaid processing, other business functions were analyzed as well, such as programs, providers, drugs and supplies, service delivery or episodes of care and life time management of clients.

Over 70 interviews and group workshops were conducted. The results of this discovery were analyzed and structured into comprehensive Use Cases with high-level system requirement implications for the EDW. Preliminary architectural alternatives were also developed.

In addition, Daman professionals assessed the scope and objectives of similar EDWs in at least six other HHS agencies from other states, including California, New York and Michigan.

Complete Project Management

Daman was responsible for overall project management. This included the development of the project schedule and all project control documents, status reports, issue management processes, and the acceptance process definition and management.

The Daman Account Manager, Program Manager and Project Manager worked closely with HHSC representatives in completing the groundwork for this project. Complexity related to information gathering from a wide range of participants, validation of results with multiple constituents, as well as final acceptance of conclusions by management needed to be managed. Despite this, the project was completed within budget and on schedule.

A Clear Rationale for Funding

Daman’s approach and methodologies proved to be well suited for analyzing a large and complex environment such as the HHSC. Daman was also able to map requirements against government compliance guidelines for Overview Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA), the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

The HHSC was pleased with the work performed by the Daman team. More importantly, the justification and requirements developed by Daman proved to be instrumental in helping the HHSC gain further funding for the EDW from the CMS.