This article focuses on human service organizations whose ultimate service mission to public clientele is attainment of self-sufficiency. The authors cite various reasons for an ever-evolving 21st Century human services model of enormous complexity that must exponentially increase its service delivery capability to keep up with increasing and varied client demands; demands which, in turn, are fraught with an increase in the pace and frequency of individual needs. Thus, that ultimate goal of users of social services realistically achieving self-sufficiency becomes still more elusive. Simply bisected, the current service delivery evolution supports innovative change on two orchestrated flanks: (1) technology and (2) human support. The latter flank must undergo reverberating changes in front-line service worker jobs and that of their case managers as a result of admittedly late-arriving technical changes in the former flank.
The authors offer a well-defined “categorical grip” to interested readers for getting a conceptual handle on the technologically-based tools involved in exponentially keeping apace of diverse human service needs: integrated case management solutions (e.g., residing on CRM platforms), sophisticated eligibility (etc) rules engines, workflow tools that integrate and make seamless multiple (triaged) services, knowledge management and collaboration tools, computer tablets and other devices for users’ remote access to services, and advanced data integration/business intelligence tools providing real-time data where imminently required.
Some of this recommended technology comes by way of budget-friendly COTS (commercial off-the-shelf) software and hardware; some of which also lends itself to increasing client participation in needed services (self-sufficiency), while raising the service performance bar for human service agencies. The authors add three recommended caveats: (1) overhauling the procurement process (which inhibits multiyear turnkey projects in general); (2) acting on the foreknowledge that vendors of COTS solutions are as important as the products they promote (i.e., issues regarding installation, integration, and maintenance); and (3) having internal technical support readily available to create easier and more meaningful ways for diverse users to use an upgraded system to its fullest (operations side of knowledge management).
Citation
Geffen, M. and J. Kost (2006). "How Technology Enables Transformation of Human Service Administration." Policy & Practice of Public Human Services 64(4): 14-17.