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Health and Human Services Cloud Resources
Health and human services (HHS) agencies across the country are using the power of Amazon Web Services (AWS) to unlock their data, improve citizen experience, and deliver better outcomes.
On this page, you'll learn how we’re helping all types of HHS agencies achieve their goals—and how you can get started with cloud. You'll find solutions, case studies, webinars, guides, eBooks, and more organized by topic, so you can quickly find resources for your agency's unique needs.
Browse resources by topic
Medicaid
One out of every four Americans has health coverage through Medicaid, including one out of every two babies born. It helps millions of us stay healthy, go to work, care for our families, and pay our bills.
AWS can help agencies move towards modularity and prepare for the end of the public health emergency. We’re supporting states across the country to:
Develop data strategies
Medicaid agencies usually don’t have a problem collecting data. Their problem is figuring out how to use it—to access it, to centralize it in a way it can be compared, and to use it to inform actionable insights.
AWS works with agencies to identify the outcomes they’re looking for and then, working backwards from those outcomes, design a data strategy that will meet their needs. We can also offer recommendations about data patterns that can help deliver on that new strategy.
Link program and technical goals
Medicaid agencies are under a lot of pressure to achieve better outcomes. But without an approach that connects tech goals to program goals, big shifts like modularity can feel like an annoyance instead of an enabler.
AWS can help connect the dots between roadmaps and missions. That might look like figuring out how to get new kinds of support in place or brainstorming ways to better align existing teams.
Make systems more flexible
Medicaid policy changes often, and agencies need to be able to respond to those changes fast. But changing a Medicaid IT system often requires long lead times, change orders, and amended contracts. In other words, lots of time and money that could be better spent on beneficiary care.
Being on the cloud can unlock the ability to take a more agile approach, whether that’s making system updates or experimenting with improving usability.
Improve beneficiary experience
Beneficiaries expect the same digital experiences they get from the private sector, but most of what Medicaid offers is handled manually, in person, or on the phone.
Modern call centers, services, and platforms can help agencies earn more trust with the providers they work with and the communities they serve.
Medicaid cloud resources
Explore case studies, blogs, solutions, and more for Medicaid leaders.
See how a new cloud-based system saved millions of dollars and reduced an overall modernization strategy roadmap by two years.
Learn how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is using AWS to help answer vital questions.
Explore a sample use case for a payment integrity solution that uses Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) data.
Connect with customers through scalable, targeted multichannel communications.
Learn more about how cloud—as well as procurement, change management, and visioning—can help deliver on modularity’s promise.
Build, train, and deploy machine learning models for any use case with fully managed infrastructure, tools, and workflows.
Reducing waste, fraud, and abuse
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ported in five years or more of records from 50 states—totaling 72 terabytes of data—to the cloud. In the past, this would have created a “log jam” for the agency’s internal data centers. California alone produces some 900 billion records per month.
By applying advanced analytics and converging previously disparate datasets, CMS gained an understanding through the data to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse, and delivered other insights never before realized.
Reducing waste, fraud, and abuse
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ported in five years or more of records from 50 states—totaling 72 terabytes of data—to the cloud. In the past, this would have created a “log jam,” and likely impossible for the agency’s internal data centers. California alone produces some 900 billion records per month.
By applying advanced analytics and converging previously disparate datasets, CMS gained an understanding through the data to crack down on waste, fraud, and abuse, and delivered other insights never before realized.
Our Medicaid experts
Child welfare
When families struggle, child welfare agencies step in. These agencies manage call center hotlines, screen reports, and make determinations, and refer clients to community-based services and support.
Keeping children and families safe is a lot of work. That work gets compounded when agencies rely on paper processes, can’t access or get insights from their data, and get stuck on how to modernize their legacy systems.
AWS can help. We’re supporting child welfare agencies to:
Manage call centers with less resources
Hotlines are losing staff and these roles are hard to backfill and train. Amazon Connect, our easy-to-use omnichannel cloud contact center, automates processes and helps prepare hotline workers before they even pick up the phone.
Make better decisions faster
From intake to case management, adoption to independent living, child welfare runs on paper processes. Services like Amazon Textract and Amazon Comprehend use artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and machine learning to extract text and tables from written documents, keeping important data together and ready for analysis.
Modernize systems to meet requirements
Across the country, child welfare agencies are modernizing their Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information Systems (SACWIS) into modern Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) systems. We can help move legacy data to the cloud or work with agencies to develop an incremental roadmap forward.
Child welfare cloud resources
Explore whitepapers, webinars, case studies, solutions, and more for child welfare leaders.
Learn how the Indiana Department of Child Services uses AWS to streamline workflows, reduce paperwork, and save money.
Automatically extract printed text, handwriting, and data from any document.
See how a child protection hotline uses Amazon Connect and Amazon Chime to serve children and families faster, better, and more reliably.
With Amazon Connect, you can set up a contact center in minutes that can scale to support millions of users.
Discover how your agency can meet IT requirements and empower caseworkers to make informed, confident decisions.
Derive and understand valuable insights from text within documents.
Reducing monthly operational costs by 40% while improving service
Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) serves 10 million residents—the biggest local child services program in the nation. Their child protection hotline is a mission-critical service, open 24/7 to receive reports about children who may be experiencing abuse.
DCFS moved to Amazon Connect in order to improve uptime, ensure sensitive information stayed secure, and gain better data and insight. They also adopted Amazon Chime as a secondary phone line and took advantage of AI/ML services for transcription and analysis of voicemail. Now, DCFS can serve children and families faster, better, and more reliably.
Reducing monthly operational costs by 40% while improving service
Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) serves 10 million residents—the biggest local child services program in the nation. Their child protection hotline is a mission-critical service, open 24/7 to receive reports about children who may be experiencing abuse.
In order to improve uptime, ensure sensitive information stayed secure, and gain better data and insight, DCFS moved to Amazon Connect. They also adopted Amazon Chime as a secondary phone line and took advantage of AI/ML services for transcription and analysis of voicemail. Now, DCFS can serve children and families faster, better, and more reliably.
Our child welfare experts
Integrated eligibility
It’s rare someone’s eligible for just one kind of public benefit. Someone who qualifies for Medicaid often also qualifies for nutrition benefits, cash assistance, and more. However, keeping these programs running can involve multiple agencies and multiple teams.
To avoid duplicating case worker and applicant effort, most states use a single system to determine eligibility across programs. The core of this technology, known as an integrated eligibility (IE) system, includes data collection, automated business rules, case management, and workflow functions.
AWS helps states improve service delivery and:
Automate document intake and processing
Documentation is key to determining eligibility. But every hour workers spend scanning and indexing, is an hour they can’t spend supporting their clients.
Intelligent document management and robotic process automation minimize manual work. Even handwritten content can be extracted, parsed, and synthesized.
Improve client experiences
Most support for benefits programs is handled manually, in person, or on the phone. That means workers waste time using tools that don’t manage benefits well, while clients have no meaningful way of tracking their applications or recertifications.
Modern call centers, services, and platforms—like those powered by Amazon Connect and Amazon Pinpoint—can help agencies earn more trust with the communities they serve.
Do more with data
Agencies usually don’t have a problem collecting data. Their problem is figuring out how to use it—to access it, to centralize it in a way it can be compared, and to use it to inform actionable insights.
Unlocking access to even basic data—even facts about spend or benefits— lets agencies answer questions more quickly and improve the ways they do business. That’s good for clients but also for workers, who end up scrambling when political leaders have questions.
Make changes faster
Benefits systems need to be nimble—especially those that handle big volumes of sensitive data like claims. But sometimes making changes is easier said than done.
Lift and shifts can make a real difference. Just being on the cloud can unlock the ability to take a more agile approach, whether that’s making system updates or experimenting with improving usability.
Integrated eligibility cloud resources
Explore whitepapers, webinars, case studies, and more for integrated eligibility leaders.
Learn how to improve customer experience and workforce productivity while providing more visibility into program performance.
With Amazon Connect, you can set up a contact center in minutes that can scale to support millions of users.
Watch how the Maryland Department of Human Services delivers programs to the state’s most vulnerable residents.
Connect with customers through scalable, targeted multichannel communications.
Hear from Maryland’s Chief Information Security Officer on designing and building a human services platform for security, scalability, and data integration.
Automatically extract printed text, handwriting, and data from any document.
Building a new health and human services platform
Like many states, Maryland was struggling with cross-program collaboration. Their data about social programs were stored in disparate systems owned by several agencies, making it difficult to provide comprehensive and coordinated assistance.
Enter Maryland’s Total Human-services Integrated Network (MD THINK), a first-in-the-nation cloud-based platform that delivers integrated health and human services programs to the state’s most vulnerable residents. Now, Maryland agencies can gain a holistic view of citizens receiving benefits and analyze data across agencies to design better assistance programs.
Building a new health and human services platform
Like many states, Maryland was struggling with cross-program collaboration. Their data about social programs were stored in disparate systems owned by several agencies, making it difficult to provide comprehensive and coordinated assistance.
Enter Maryland’s Total Human-services Integrated Network (MD THINK), a first-in-the-nation cloud-based platform that delivers integrated health and human services programs to the state’s most vulnerable residents. Now, Maryland agencies can gain a holistic view of citizens receiving benefits and analyze data across agencies to design better assistance programs.
Our integrated eligibility experts
Public health
Departments of Health (DOH) and other public health agencies are focusing on developing modern infrastructure to promote and protect the health of people and the communities where they live, learn, work and play—especially when speed to data and decisions matter.
AWS helps public health agencies:
Create strategic visions
Thanks to an influx of new leadership in public health, agencies are looking for holistic visions for modernization—but balancing day-to-day business with future planning can be a challenge.
Working side-by-side with agencies, we help think through issues like what they want their infrastructure to look like, what business cases they’re trying to solve for, and what they’ll need to set themselves up for success.
Break down data silos
Breaking down data silos is often the first part of any public health agency’s strategic plan. But accomplishing that can take sophisticated data infrastructure and a huge amount of data processing power, which can be tough to come by on-premise.
We've built solutions to help jurisdictions bring different types of data together and be ready for analytics—quickly. Cloud-native technology makes adding new data sources easy.
Ensure system resiliency and scalability
In the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, agencies received so much data that even quadrupling their on-prem server capacity wasn’t enough. Counties had to rely on state systems that they had no ability to control, or else devise their own solutions to close the gap.
Agencies need flexible systems that can handle fluctuations and disruptions whenever they come. We can help modernize disease surveillance systems, electronic laboratory reporting systems, immunization information systems, and more.
Public health cloud resources
Explore whitepapers, webinars, case studies, and more for public health leaders.
It’s helpful to understand the skills and functions needed to build, operate, and use a modern data architecture. This infographic illustrates the teams, roles, and skills needed to support a modern public health data infrastructure.
Washington Department of Public Health discovers
the art of the possible and innovates for its communities.
This pathway will help public health leaders become more familiar with key cloud concepts. This recommended set of online resources provides an orientation to the benefits of the cloud and data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) services available with AWS.
Cloud-computing learning resources relevant to the needs of a public health organization - specifically for applied epidemiologists, public health informaticians, and bioinformaticians.
This open source solution helps democratize access to genomics sequencing analytics.
Washington implemented a COVID-19 test kit distribution program using Amazon’s fulfillment network across the state and CareEvolution’s application technology.
30 days to better reliability, response times, and fewer latency issues
Utah maintains its own epidemiological and disease surveillance system, an open-source solution called EpiTrax. EpiTrax was built on-premise, though, and COVID-19 stretched it beyond its breaking point.
Within 30 days, Utah was able to lift and shift EpiTrax onto an AWS environment. In doing so, they reduced crashing and latency issues, enhanced system reliability, and improved their response times. They were also able to give contact tracers access to EpiTrax, quickly and securely expanding their contact tracing capacity.
30 days to better reliability, response times, and fewer latency issues
Utah maintains its own epidemiological and disease surveillance system, an open-source solution called EpiTrax. EpiTrax was built on-premise, though, and COVID-19 stretched it beyond its breaking point.
Within 30 days, Utah was able to lift and shift EpiTrax onto an AWS environment. In doing so, they reduced crashing and latency issues, enhanced system reliability, and improved their response times. They were also able to give contact tracers access to EpiTrax, quickly and securely expanding their contact tracing capacity.
Our public health experts
Labor and workforce
Unemployment insurance (UI) should be a lifeline for people when they need it most. For that to happen, claimants need resilient systems that make it easy to get the benefits they need. Agencies deserve resilient systems, too—systems that supercharge their work and empower them to support more people even faster.
AWS helps agencies with their unemployment insurance programs to:
Build smarter unemployment insurance systems
The COVID-19 pandemic made it clear just how brittle some legacy systems could be. And while the pandemic crunch may be over, UI systems across the country still need to be better, smarter, and faster.
AWS’s artificial intelligence and machine learning services help. Amazon Lex can build conversational, multi-channel interfaces; Amazon SageMaker can speed adjudication with artificial intelligence; and Amazon Fraud Detector can help prevent fraud and misuse.
Improve claimant experience
People applying for unemployment insurance are already having a bad day. Modern systems designed around user experience, not compliance, help minimize the burden on claimants.
Our user-friendly front-end services like Amazon Connect improve claimant experience. Plus, Amazon Pinpoint can manage text and email messaging, unlocking new channels for claimants.
Labor and workforce cloud resources
Explore case studies, solutions, and more for labor and workforce leaders.
With Amazon Connect, you can set up a contact center in minutes that can scale to support millions of users.
The Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training implemented Amazon Connect’s cloud-based contact center to allow claimants to certify their claim and get the help they need.
Build, deploy, and manage fraud detection models without previous machine learning (ML) experience.
Connect with customers through scalable, targeted multichannel communications.
Explore lessons learned from the pandemic – and a path forward – as state workforce agencies look to modernize their UI systems.
Build, train, and deploy machine learning (ML) models for any use case with fully managed infrastructure, tools, and workflows.
Achieving a 600% call capacity increase
COVID-19 increased Iowa’s unemployment claims by 2,100% and drove unprecedented call volume. At its worst, only 7% of callers were able to connect to someone who could help them.
To respond to this crisis, Iowa Workforce Development turned to Amazon Connect. Today, they can quickly scale up to handle 1,500 concurrent calls, a 600% increase from the 250-call capacity of the legacy system. Smart features like Amazon Lex have enabled the system to answer about one-third of customer queries without the involvement of human workers.
Achieving a 600% call capacity increase
COVID-19 increased Iowa’s unemployment claims by 2,100% and drove unprecedented call volume. At its worst, only 7% of callers were able to connect to someone who could help them.
To respond to this crisis, Iowa Workforce Development turned to Amazon Connect. Today, they can quickly scale up to handle 1,500 concurrent calls, a 600% increase from the 250-call capacity of the legacy system. Smart features like Amazon Lex have enabled the system to answer about one-third of customer queries without the involvement of human workers.
Our labor and workforce experts
Health information exchange
For the past 20 years, health information exchange (HIE) systems have been helping organizations safely and securely share medical data. Originally, these systems were heavily subsidized by the federal government. However, as funding structures change, HIEs are looking to expand their services, reduce their costs, and remain sustainable.
AWS can help HIEs to:
Better leverage master patient indexes (MPIs)
Health information exchange systems are looking for the next generation of MPIs. Solutions that leverage machine learning (ML) can dramatically reduce costs, improve accuracy, and deliver the flexibility needed to expand services for new customers.
Make better decisions faster
Health information systems build their businesses on their ability to move and manage multiple data sets and produce insights based on stakeholders’ needs. Data lakes provide HIEs the ability to easily bring together diverse data sets and manage them according to stakeholders’ needs.
Do more with less resources
Trust is essential for health information systems. Building and maintaining trust requires reliable, flexible solutions able to meet strict service-level agreements.
Many HIEs still rely on on-premise data centers to manage data and services for their stakeholders. That limits their ability to quickly scale for new services, leads to high costs, and offers less than optimal reliability. Migrating to AWS can improve an HIE’s sustainability and allow the business to focus on expansion.
Expand technical expertise
Some health information systems need help implementing new technologies. Managed services allow HIEs to expand their team with technical competency and bandwidth.
Health information exchange cloud resources
Explore whitepapers, webinars, case studies, and more for health information exchange leaders.
Explore how CyncHealth rose to the challenge of COVID-19 with cloud-based analytics and robust patient matching tools.
Discover how Keystone Health Information Exchange (KeyHIE) used AWS services to improve their availability, increase their flexibility, and deliver even stronger performance.
Learn how HealtHIE Nevada migrated their SQL database to the cloud in less than 30 days.
Learn how Cloudticity helped the Michigan Health Information Network become a healthcare technology powerhouse.
MiHin breaks down
disparate and siloed data systems, using its digital infrastructure to provide
critical and comprehensive patient information to the state’s network of care
providers.
Read how California’s nonprofit health data network developed a more flexible, modern technology platform.
Rolling out a database to fight COVID-19 in only 11 days
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York was one of the areas hardest hit, with more than 300,000 known cases by late May. To support the COVID-19 response efforts, the New York State Department of Health faced a major data challenge: collating clinical data being received from six separate healthcare information exchanges.
The department worked with AWS and Cloudticity to quickly stand up a database to capture real-time clinical data—a tool that quickly became a powerful tool in New York’s arsenal for the fight against COVID-19.
Rolling out a database to fight COVID-19 in only 11 days
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, New York was one of the areas hardest hit, with more than 300,000 known cases by late May. To support the COVID-19 response efforts, the New York State Department of Health faced a major data challenge: collating clinical data being received from six separate healthcare information exchanges.
The department worked with AWS and Cloudticity to quickly stand up a database to capture real-time clinical data—a tool that quickly became a powerful tool in New York’s arsenal for the fight against COVID-19.