North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services

North Carolina, USA

Champion since 2023

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) manages the delivery of health- and human-related services for all North Carolinians, especially its most vulnerable citizens—children, elderly, disabled, and low-income families. The Department works closely with health care professionals, community leaders and advocacy groups; local, state and federal entities; and many other stakeholders to make this happen. The department is divided into 33 divisions and offices. NCDHHS divisions and offices fall under six broad service areas—health, opportunity and well-being, Medicaid, operational excellence, policy and communications, and health equity. NCDHHS also oversees 14 facilities: developmental centers, neuro-medical treatment centers, psychiatric hospitals, drug abuse treatment centers, and two residential programs for children.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services is an epicenter of information for the citizens of North Carolina. The amount of data that NCDHHS processes every day is staggering. Like most large organizations, NCDHHS’ data is spread out among many disparate systems which made data collection and reporting an arduous manual process. Data was painstakingly gathered from many systems in many different formats. Once collected, the data then needed to be manually cleaned, manually entered, and manually reported. And after all that effort, the data reported was not always the most up-to-date.

When the impacts of COVID-19 hit North Carolina, real-time COVID-19 metrics were needed to help inform decisions that would impact millions of North Carolinians’ lives. Within 48 hours, NCDHHS stood up the newly designed, forward-thinking, HIPAA-compliant, cloud-based solution: The Business Intelligence Data Platform (BIDP). For the first time in department history, data could automatically flow into one system from many data sources and then be quickly distributed to the masses. North Carolina leadership and citizens are now able to see up-to-date data and trends within the state. BIDP has also significantly reduced the resources that were once needed for NCDHHS’ data analytics and reporting. BIDP automatically processes and distributes data to support 10 NCDHHS COVID-19 dashboards showing COVID-related statistics, including vaccination data. Looking beyond the pandemic, BIDP is also being leveraged to support the data needs for many programs within the department. BIDP’s scalability, adaptability and ease of use has enhanced the way NCDHHS is able to serve its citizens, using more readily available data to support efforts which bring more equity and transparency to the delivery of health and human services in North Carolina.

NC DHHS implemented its Medicaid Encounter Processing System (EPS) in AWS in 2021.  NC DHHS was the first public sector AWS customer. The EPS application brings tremendous speed, cost efficiency, and time-to-value for the State. As managed care was implemented, the EPS was developed as the foundation for data-sharing among organizations, integrating physical and behavioral health, and streamlining payment and health plan encounter processes. This complex system integrated methodologies to deliver high-quality care, keeping a person’s whole health in mind, to improve overall health outcomes and to maximize high-value care of beneficiaries.

Today, EPS provides a secure, low-cost and online application to receive and manage real-time submissions about patient encounters from managed care organizations and healthcare providers. As of June 2024, the EPS processed more than 350 million encounters for the State’s managed care program. 

The AWS Champions program recognizes, celebrates, and supports organizations and individuals driving digital transformation with cloud computing. AWS recognizes AWS Education Champions, AWS State and Local Government Champions, AWS EdTech Champions, and AWS GovTech Champions.

The purpose of the program is to acknowledge customers that have used AWS products and services in innovative ways to improve the service to their communities, constituents, customers, stakeholders, staff, students, faculty or researchers. Champions’ experiences and success stories serve as inspiration for other education, state and local government, EdTech and GovTech customers to reference as they think about their own digital transformation journey.   

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