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Health Planning Office Beefs Up Data Skills

The Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development has beefed up its data skills and recently migrated hospital financial data from a legacy mainframe to a modern data collection solution.

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Editor’s note: Following is one in an ongoing series of profiles of the largest California state government agencies.

The California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD) has a budget of about $165 million for the 2017-2018 fiscal year; $10 million of that is allocated to information technology services. A majority of the allocation goes toward employee compensation.

OSHPD collects and distributes data and information about California's health-care infrastructure and publishes valuable information about health-care outcomes. It also monitors the construction, renovation and seismic safety of hospitals and health-care facilities.

OSHPD recently completed the migration of hospital financial data from a legacy mainframe to a modern data collection solution, the System for Integrated Electronic Reporting and Auditing (SIERA).

“We have developed SIERA incrementally over a number of years, in each phase building on the success of the last,” said CIO Scott Christman, who's also a deputy director.

“A few years ago we completed the development of a Healthcare Workforce Clearinghouse. The maintenance of that system includes organizing health-care workforce data in our enterprise data warehouse,” Christman said. They have worked with several vendors in recent years, including Equanim Technologies, Estrada Consulting and, currently, the Architecture & Analytics Group. OSHPD also employs vendors to augment its in-house data management team.

OSHPD recently worked to increase the value of its data analytics capacity, with the implementation of Tableau as a standard business intelligence tool, Christman said.

“Adoption of Tableau as our standard for BI (business intelligence) and analytics has been a marked success for OSHPD, and is now widely used across the organization.”

OSHPD also administers the California Health and Human Services (CHHS) Open Data Portal in support of the California Health and Human Services Agency. Last year it successfully migrated the CHHS Open Data Portal onto the OpenGov open-data portal solution. The portal is being hosted by OpenGov, a California-based software partner. 

“Migrating the portal to CKAN helps users better leverage the tremendous data assets available on the portal,” Christman said. “CKAN makes it easier to implement improved navigation and usability, a wider range of data formats, as well as upcoming charts, maps, and dashboards to visualize the data and bring it to life.”

OSHPD is always trying to improve its cybersecurity posture, he said.

“This year we have modernized our security training offering for all staff, making our team members more aware of potential cyberthreats they could encounter in the course of work,” Christman said. OSHPD recently implemented a new network access control solution to better protect the devices connected to its network, and the office continues to invest in training technology staff on security tools.

This year OSHPD is focused on implementing a new data collection program based on the provisions of Senate Bill 17. It will be collecting data describing prescription drug cost increases from manufacturers and will leverage existing technologies and capabilities to complete the IT component of the program, Christman said.

Ten2Eleven Business Solutions is assisting our cost transparency team with pharmaceutical industry expertise,” he said.

OSHPD is also working with Trinity Technology Group to extend a number of business applications on a Microsoft Dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) platform, and prioritizing an overhaul of the department’s website to improve content management.

“A request for quotation is currently in process to select a certified small business that will help us with some of the website work,” Christman said. They will use a MarkLogic database to integrate, organize and store public-facing data assets and documents on the new website.

“What’s immediately in front of us is shifting our Web platform,” he said. “We’ve been working on an antiquated HTML. ... We’re completing an RFQ right now. We certainly enjoy working with certified small businesses, and we will be looking for those types of resources.”