Now access the Health and Human Services Cloud Pavilion: An online, interactive learning environment

State and local governments and health and human services (HHS) agencies provide key services to the nation’s most vulnerable and at-risk populations such as healthcare, nutrition, economic, and other social support programs. HHS organizations were among the first to feel the impact of COVID-19 and its effects continue to linger and test aging infrastructure and limited technology systems. State and local government agencies made mission critical decisions to address those immediate needs and are preparing for resiliency moving forward. For this, they turned to the cloud. To help organizations discover how the cloud can help, Amazon Web Services (AWS) created the Health and Human Services Cloud Pavilion, an online, interactive learning environment.

Learning from HHS peers

Rhode Island was faced with increased volume of unemployment insurance claims. The state’s 30-year-old COBOL-based processing system was straining and claim certification calls inundated the department’s outdated interactive voice response (IVR) and interactive web response (IWR) systems. Virginia struggled with data centralization, sharing, and security. Its governor needed to make evidence-based response decisions and provide daily updates. State officials needed to have a view of healthcare resources to adequately provision personal protective equipment where it was needed throughout the crisis. Maryland needed to reach hundreds of citizens who may have been exposed to COVID-19 to reduce the number of infections and flatten the curve. Not only did the department of IT have to build a system to support the project, they had to scale to meet demand. All three customers quickly overcame obstacles with solutions built on AWS such as Amazon Connect, Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), and Amazon Relational Database Service (Amazon RDS).

Hear more stories from state and local governments and HHS agencies like these in the virtual reality experience Health and Human Services Cloud Pavilion. Built with AWS capabilities, users can follow an avatar and advance through the learning environment at their own pace. Take a quick tour in this video.

How it works

The Health and Human Services Cloud Pavilion is a centralized educational environment. In one spot, users can find HHS case studies, whitepapers, AWS Partner Network (APN) Partners information, AWS solutions, training, and basics for those who are new to the cloud. The pavilion avatar, Hannah, introduces users to each of the five pavilion kiosks containing content in a variety of formats such videos, webinars, blog articles, and more. No special equipment is needed, although we recommend viewing with a desktop or laptop computer. Fill out this brief form to get started. Then navigate at your own pace, select a kiosk of interest, and choose from a variety of topics. After touring all five kiosks, we ask for feedback so we can improve the virtual reality experience and learn more about your agency’s technology needs.

Face-to-face alternative

As an alternative to face-to-face visits, AWS collaborated with 900LBS, an interactive agency, to develop this innovative channel, the Health and Human Services Cloud Pavilion. From anywhere, users can learn more about how cloud technology and AWS solutions can help enhance HHS program outcomes for constituents, which include improved time to services, lower wait times for assistance, and easier access to information. Agencies also benefit from lower technology costs, improved agility, and the ability to build analytics tools to support initiatives.

Visit the pavilion today to get started with this 3D-interactive experience and explore how other HHS agencies are using cloud technology.