Reflections from the 2024 State Healthcare IT Connect

Organizational Change Management: Several sessions emphasized the crucial role of organizational change management (OCM) in ensuring the success of HHS transformation projects. It goes beyond software testing and starts early, adapting to changing audiences and messages over time. OCM should consider not only end-users but also agency leadership, Managed Care Organization (MCO) partners, providers, legislative resources, and other stakeholders, tailoring the plan to their specific roles. As these projects span multiple years, accounting for new team members and ensuring their understanding of the project's vision is important. Culture integration from the start is essential, maintaining a strong vision while remaining flexible on implementation. OCM also has ongoing impacts like future support, recruiting, and staff relations that should be considered.

Innovation: Innovation was a key theme at the State Healthcare IT Connect Summit, with a focus on low-tech solutions to improve HHS service delivery and expand access to care. The Maryland "Healthcare for the Homeless" approach highlighted the importance of building trust and meeting specific community needs. This initiative started as a pilot and expanded statewide after achieving positive results. Improving maternal health was another area of focus, with Indiana's "My Healthy Baby" program addressing the lack of prenatal care in marginalized communities, and Washington, DC's "HONEY" program providing support and resources for pregnant people experiencing homelessness. Both programs have expanded after successful pilots, demonstrating the recognition and support for innovative solutions to address critical community needs.

What lies ahead: Multiple sessions at the Summit discussed what lies on the horizon for Medicaid agencies and the broader HHS community, from updating the Medicaid Information Technology Architecture (MITA) framework, enhancing electronic health record (EHR) interoperability, and better facilitating behavioral health exchange, to including prior authorization application programming interfaces (APIs) for automation and payer-to-payer API access, and more. These changes may require significant operational adjustments for providers and payers alike.

Download the full paper below for more insights.