The headline from the Newark Star-Ledger tells the story: “N.J. drug overdose deaths in 2018 on a record-shattering pace.” The opioid crisis continues to grow in New Jersey. From July 1, 2016 to June 30, 2017, the state saw a 34.7 percent increase in the number of opioid-related deaths, a
Much has been written about the value that North Carolina’s Criminal Justice Law Enforcement Automated Data Services (CJLEADS) system has brought the state’s court personnel and law enforcement officers. CJLEADS integrates dozens of NC criminal justice and law enforcement data sets, a vast improvement over the state’s legacy processes. Law
Data integration helps a successful business make things simple and quick for customers, and keeps them coming back. While a company will have data silos, data held within one area is made available to others in order to help the customer. In most local, county and state governments that is
To prepare for the data challenges of 2015 and beyond, health care fraud, waste and abuse investigative units (government funded and commercial insurance plans, alike) need a data management infrastructure that provides access to data across programs, products and channels. This goes well beyond sorting and filtering small sets of
I remember when I first started in public child welfare 21 years ago and the word "outcomes" was introduced. At that time, we believed that if it felt good and children and families seemed happy that we were doing a good job - those were our outcomes. We were wrong.
The physical and social costs of untreated mental illness are significant and have been discussed in detail in previous posts. Now let’s talk about the immense financial costs, then I’ll wrap up the series with a conclusion. The financial costs cover a broad cross-section of society, including government services and
Imagine a business offering a multitude of products and services that seemingly have little relationship to one another, and all are supported by different data systems. This is the plight of local governments. The products and services produced and managed by local governments range from utilities, solid waste and recycling to parks
As much as I enjoy dramatic reinterpretations, for this blog post I’m just going to talk to you about the complex challenges municipal organizations face in setting spending priorities. The complexity stems from competing aspects of the various projects vying for funding. Some of these factors are related to the
This is a dramatic interpretation of an actual conversation I recently had with the CIO of one of North Carolina’s leading cities. We discussed his experience using data quality, data integration, business intelligence and analytics in the daily operation of the city. I may have taken some...well, a lot of
The single most costly employee benefit for any organization is health insurance, and the price is going up. From 2003-2009, the costs per hour worked for employee health insurance increased from $1.03 to $2.00. These costs continue to increase from 5%-7% per year. The reality is that employee health insurance costs will continue
