178665 Massachusetts Vital Registry Automation: Improving Collaboration between State Health Agencies and Medicaid through Transformation Grants

Tuesday, October 28, 2008: 9:10 AM

Susan Bell , Executive Office of Health and Human Services, MassHealth Operations, Boston, MA
     
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services (EOHHS), Office of Medicaid is collaborating with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's Registry of Vital Records and Statistics (MDPH/RVRS) to establish an automated birth certificate verification process. This process will augment our existing data matches which include SVES, Medicare, SSI, SDX, RMV, and the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA), and shall allow EOHHS to effectively and efficiently comply with the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 by verifying citizenship electronically using valid Massachusetts birth certificate information.

Thusly, the value of this project and its progression towards achieving transparency can be seen in three key areas:

• Enhancing MassHealth program integrity by establishing a process of identity verification for MassHealth and Commonwealth Care members and applicants.

• Developing an efficient and effective process for storage, retrieval and utilization of valid birth certificates information.

• Ensuring MassHealth continuity of operations by establishing an electronic database of vital birth certificate information that is backed-up in the event of an emergency.

A nationally recognized full service vendor, Databank IMX Imaging and Information Solutions, with nine production centers throughout the country, was chosen for the digitization of the 4.6M paper birth certificates and 575,000 additional documents for a total of 5.175M records. This vendor shall capture, manage, store, preserve and deliver secured digitized birth record information starting in1988 and working in reverse chronological order. Finally, this transformative EOHHS enterprise-wide, e-government initiative, is integrating essential functions, agency responsibilities, and vital information to effort convenience, efficiency, and improved accessibility for MassHealth applicants and beneficiaries.

Learning Objectives:
1. Describe how state health agencies are using Transformation Grants to collaborate with Medicaid and streamline programs and increase efficiency. 2. Discuss innovative approaches to restructuring state health and increasing accountability, efficiency, and quality within Medicaid programs using Transformation Grants.

Keywords: Medicaid, Funding

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I am the Senior Advisor at MassHealth Operations, the project manager of the Transformation Grant working on Massachusetts' Vital Registry Automation.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

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