CIOs Leverage Cloud to Unify Behavioral Health Services

Public sector health organizations can modernize health systems by leveraging integrated cloud services and new data enterprise systems, officials from the Commonwealth of Virginia said this week during AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“The operating model that we have is what I call a shared operating model. It’s based around the notion that, at the enterprise, we standardize the infrastructure so that we can unify the different work that we do in terms of the platforms that we operate in, the network, the end user, compute devices and the data centers. Those are all common across the 67 different entities,” Virginia’s CIO Bob Osmond said Tuesday during the conference.

State technology leaders and partners from Deloitte said that integration with cloud services is transforming care delivery, data transparency and interagency collaboration. Osmond described the state’s IT operating model as both standardized and decentralized, balancing enterprise infrastructure with agency-specific solutions.

“It’s a nice way to drive scale and standardization on things that lend themselves to standardization and also allows agencies that are closest to their mission to develop the unique solutions and capabilities that they need in order to deliver that mission as best as possible,” said Osmond.

The Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services (DBHDS) has been at the forefront of this modernization. DBHDS CIO Russell Accashian said that government agencies often face hurdles from siloed systems and delayed data.

“Everything in the public sector is done in silos. Everything is a funded project with no vision. No ability to look at, ‘How do I want to build components that I can then continue to build on as I go?’” he said.

Accashian noted that Virginia’s new enterprise data warehouse now enables integration across facilities, community service boards and private providers, creating a master patient index to track individuals’ progress statewide.

Deloitte’s Dan Hoag added that health data has to comply with many privacy, security and ethical practices, especially in mental health care.

“There are many federal reportings through SAMHSA and other organizations that are required to get out the what is happening. [Modernization] has given DBHDS the opportunity to say, ‘I have a better understanding of not only the care that’s being delivered, but how much it’s costing, how frequently it’s being delivered,’” Hoag said.

The shift to cloud-native services has also accelerated real-time data integration, Accashian said.

“It was hard to believe that you had 12 facilities that each could have anywhere from 100 to 300 to 400 beds, and nobody knew what was going on. Being able to do bed management through admissions and discharge in real time … was eye opening,” Accashian said.

Osmond said that leadership drives cultural change in public sector organizations when modernizing systems.

“I think it starts with having a vision. Having a leader in an agency like Russell to come in and bring in that background from the private sector and say: ‘I have a different idea of how we should be operating,’” he said. “You have to be stubborn. You have to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this.’ Once you accomplish it, then it’s done, and then it’s no longer a first of its kind within the state. It’s something that is normal.”

Accashian said that the initiative has already delivered unprecedented transparency and data quality, enabling DBHDS to meet federal reporting requirements and improve outcomes for vulnerable populations.

“We’ve really progressed the data analytic capabilities across the state of Virginia when it comes to behavioral health,” Accashian said. “We’re well-positioned now to really modernize technology and move forward.”