Missouri Division of Workers' Compensation Data Strategy

Business Case:

A mid-sized state agency sought to move away from a business model burdened by paper-driven processes and system limitations and towards a more streamlined “paperless” environment.  A critical component of the evolution to this future state was a data strategy supporting a portal based technology solution used by virtually all of its stakeholders, both internal and external, and supported by stable and reliable data as well as robust reporting capabilities.  The issues posing the most challenges were:

  • Master Data - The agency allocated significant resources to maintain accuracy of Employers, Attorneys, and Insurers captured in the processing of cases and claims.
  • Reliability and Duplication of Data – Due to manual collection and validation of data entering the system and lack of training for data entry staff, there is a high volume of defects in case data.
  • Reporting Inadequacy - Reporting as a result is not comprehensive or flexible enough to effectively handle changing business reporting needs.

A comprehensive, actionable, data strategy would have to help the agency better understand the current environment, lay out a vision for their future, and define an approach and schedule for achieving that vision in synch with the overall future state business strategy.

Solution: 

CapTech consultants interviewed key stakeholders, and researched recently developed business process documentation to provide an analysis of the current state data environment.  The most significant challenges for the agency were evaluated and documented.  Data management and business intelligence industry best practices and emerging approaches relevant to these issues and challenges were presented.  Based on these analyses and active participation in reviews of the future state business workflows, CapTech crafted recommendations for the strategy elements necessary to align the future state data environment to fully support achievement of the value of Division’s overall future state vision.  Key highlights of these recommendations were:

  • Programs for Data Quality and Master Data Management
  • Data Security & Privacy Policy
  • Portal Transactional Database to support increased variety and volume of system interactions
  • Enterprise data integration and data cleansing tools and processes
  • Presentation layer targeting the widening set of consumers and their demands for agency data
Tools: 
  • Data Flow Diagrams, Conceptual and Logical Data Modeling (Visio)
  • Create/Read/Update/Delete Analysis, Inventories (Excel)
Results: 
  • Portal performance and usability necessary to support increased variety and volume of system interactions
  • Data reliability, consistency, and elimination of critical data defects from each data layer
  • Securing of sensitive agency data while also opening the date environment for access by its stakeholders
  • Data structures optimized for reporting and separate from data structures optimized for transactional activity
  • Flexible reporting applications which target the widening set of consumers and their demands for agency data