OFFICE OF THE
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF TEXAS
Title: Crime Victims Compensation
Legacy Workflow Solution
2014 NASCIO Recognition Award Submission
Nomination Category: Improving State Operations
Contact: Rudy Montoya, Chief Information Officer
State: Texas
The Crime Victim Services Division (CVSD) of the Texas Office of the Attorney General (OAG) serves crime victims by offering training and ou treach programs, administering victim service related grants and overseeing the Crime Victims’ Compensation (CVC) Program which pays medical and other eligible bills related to violent crimes.
Implemented in 1999, the OAG CVSD’s workflow system was no longer
supportable, and was in a critical state. The system is a core component of the business process to deliver crime victim services for the State of Texas. The agency needed to replace the system quickly and seamlessly to avoid delays in providing statutorily mandated services that could impact future state and federal funding.
OAG contracted with IBM Business Partner, Adjacent Technologies to validate requirements and recommend a s ystem that could be implemented with minimal disruption to operations. Adjacent Technologies proposed an adaptive, cloud-hosted case management solution based on IBM FileNet Content Manager, and IBM Case Manager software for enhanced reliability, flexibility, and s ecurity. F rom contract award to go-live, the team successfully completed the Legacy Workflow Solution in less than 13 months with minimal effects on in-process crime victim claims.
OAG uses the adaptive case management system to manage the victim application process, eligibility determination case management, medical bill tracking, and t he appeals procedure. As the solution is cloud-hosted, it is less costly to administer, maintain, and update than traditional capital-expensed systems.
With flexible workflow automation and greater visibility into crime victims compensation claims and into staff member workloads, the agency can be m ore efficient and responsive. F inally, the system supports content analytics and t rend analyses for ongoing improvement in staff productivity and service provision.
Executive Summary
Crime Victim Services Division:
Payer of Last Resort to Victims of
Crime
Revenue from Fees Collected
from Criminals
Program Receives 100
Implemented in 1999, the OAG Crime Victims Services Division’s existing workflow system was no longer supportable, and was in a critical state. The agency needed to replace the system quickly and s eamlessly to avoid delays in providing statutorily mandated services which could impact future state and federal funding.
The OAG contracted with IBM Business Partner, Adjacent Technologies to validate requirements and recommend a system that could be implemented with minimal disruption to operations. Adjacent Technologies proposed an adaptive, cloud-hosted claims management solution based on IBM Case Manager and IBM FileNet Content Manager software for enhanced reliability, flexibility, and security.
The Adjacent Technologies project team developed and deployed the entire legacy workflow solution. They also provided the cloud hosting platform, and supply ongoing application support. During development, the project team used an online library of flowcharts, swim lane diagrams, and supplemental notes for OAG staff to review and approve. Detailed process maps were created, and were validated for completeness and accuracy by individual OAG business groups, and at multiple managerial levels. To help OAG staff visualize and i dentify additional requirements, the implementation team also used IBM Blueworks software to model the potential environment.
While the business process requirements were being finalized, the Adjacent Technologies project team worked with OAG staff to develop the document conversion and transfer process. More than 3.1 million documents, 700,000 cases and 700,000 bills were downloaded, converted, and uploaded to the cloud production environment. At the end of the requirements analysis phase, the Adjacent Technologies team moved the adaptive workflow solution to the test environment, and worked with OAG staff to thoroughly vet it before moving final documents, data, and workflow to the cloud. From contract award to go-live, the team successfully completed this first phase in the project in less than 13 months with minimal effects to in-process crime victim claims.
The prime impact of the new workflow solution is that crime victim recipients are compensated as allowed by statute to meet medical and family needs. In Texas Fiscal Year 2012, the OAG CVSD paid over $61 million in claims to victims of crime in the State of Texas. Other benefits include:
Cases can start and progress even with partial information to speed compensation and allowing additional documents to be added later
Consolidated, secure view empowers knowledge workers and i mproves responsiveness to crime victims
Rules-driven case assignments, including staff availability, case type, and relatedness makes cases easier to manage
Increased accuracy of data collection and analysis
Automated audit control
Regulatory compliance
Lower long term operating costs using the cloud based platform vs. a traditional
capital system
Victims of crime may access the application process via the OAG website:
Initiating Cases More Quickly
Today, OAG staff are able to initiate the claim process with only partial documentation. Staff can determine eligibility and i nvestigate related and potentially duplicate case submissions. S taff are also able to highlight those claims that have incomplete information without delaying progress towards compensation.
Improving Case Worker Responsiveness
Today, case workers have a c onsolidated, highly secure view into victims’ claims with access to all received documentation, and case histories. F or example, when victims call about their applications, a service provider calls about a pay ment, when law enforcement fax requested reports, case workers are able to respond immediately and k nowledgably. Staff can initiate pre-defined and ad hoc tasks via workflow notification to assignees. Additionally, they and other authorized agency staff members can capture and properly amend new data and documents throughout the life of the claim servicing, which eliminates potential loss of paper-based information.
Decreasing Victims’ Wait Times
The solution will decrease victims’ wait times with workflow standardization and business rules to increase process efficiency, and enforces best practices and policies. For example, previously, compensation eligibility determinations needing management review could be significantly delayed without diligent manual follow-up efforts. T he new system automatically routes cases to the next step in the process, mitigating this risk. T ask recipients are immediately aware of the added items, and can work by multiple factors, including due dates. R eminder notifications and automated task escalations keep staff members from overlooking required actions. Additionally, as the system permits adding ad hoc tasks and requests to the workflow, staff have the flexibility to include new steps and approaches in resolving case issues.
Balancing Staff Workloads
With automated workflow tracking, and increased visibility into workloads, CVSD managers are better able to evaluate and improve agency performance to service level targets. M anagers can see near real-time claim processing volumes and allocate resources accordingly. They are able to monitor and adjust workloads, and view program productivity through business intelligence reports at the division, workgroup, and individual levels. The system also supports content analytics and trend analyses for ongoing improvement in staff productivity and service provision.
Enhanced System Security
Authorized managers can replace and reassign staff members with a one-time update to the enterprise standard address library with no external support or involvement. Task routings and notifications are based on business rules, and integrate with enterprise security applications.
Saving Significant IT Time and Effort
As the solution is cloud-hosted, it is less costly to administer, maintain, and update than traditional capital-expensed systems.
A demonstration of the system is available.
