April Minutes

ITAC MEETING MINUTES
April 21, 2011

Attendees: Daren Baughman Robert Michaud, Dr. Marc Hoit, Hank Cox, Vass Johnson, Darryl McGraw, Michael Reilly

Absent: Darryl McGraw, Gloria McNeill, Niah Darcy, Michael Reilly; absent due to work schedule conflict

Absent: Steve Kim

Wake County: Mary Baker, Debbie Moore

The meeting began at 9:03 a.m.

Mary Baker Human Services Technology Officer for Wake County, introduced herself and welcomed everyone to the meeting and ensured that all members had received the presentation and Strategic Plan update that would be reviewed in this meeting.

Mary went over the presentation which included an Overview of the Human Services Department; Major Accomplishments in 2010; Changes to the Landscape Impacting Technical Decisions Going Forward and a Status Update for the Objectives from the Original Strategic Plan.

It was acknowledged that the top two priorities for 2011 will be the implementation of a Document Management/Imaging Solution in Social Services and the replacement of the aging Practice Management System in Public Health to include Electronic Health Records.

Following the presentation Mary asked if there were any questions or comments from the group. Robert commented that he was not terribly familiar with Human Services and the technical needs of the Department and that he had been unaware of the extent to which Wake County Human Services is at the mercy of State and Federal Government in terms of technical direction. Mary agreed.

Darryl asked how many people are supporting these initiatives? Mary answered that it varies according to the initiative and where we were in the project. For the two major efforts going forward; teams are being assembled that include both staff from the business unit, technical staff from IS and representation from Finance for the new Public Health Billing System.

Darren commented that the plans were very ambitious and asked if funding for one or both efforts could be delayed another year? Mary answered that the Public Health initiative had been listed as a horizon request for the past three years and given the fact that the ICD 10 code changes will not be supported in our current system and that if we did not have a replacement system fully operational by October 2013 we would not be able to bill $18 million per year in clinical services this project could not be delayed another year.

With the increases in clients requesting assistance in Social Services and the inability to keep up with demand without adding staff the DSS Document Imaging Project also needs to move forward. The State has delayed Case Management several times and the DSS units desperately need technology to enable them to keep up. The system will also pay for itself within a few years.

Mary thanked everyone for attending and for their input.

Meeting adjourned at 9:43 a.m.