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Jeff Rhoda - Jeff Rhoda is the general manager of IBM’s government and education industries worldwide responsible for industry performance, strategy, and strategic partnerships. He has spent more than 25 years in the public sector with IBM in areas including sales, marketing, channels, and ibm.com. He has extensive experience working with government, health care, and education clients in Latin America, Australia and New Zealand, Central and Eastern Europe, Russia, the Middle East, Africa, and Asia.

Smarter Social Programs Yield Thriving Populations
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Around the world administrations at city, regional, and national levels sense that the global spend on health and social programs -- $7.7 trillion -- could be more effective. These expenditures are driven, in part, by a fragmented approach to managing citizen services. IBM is helping civic leaders around the world make smarter social programs a reality. Analytics technology and information-sharing solutions can improve delivery of services and allow governments to better support the social and economic potential of populations.

For example, in California, Alameda County improved its ability to respond to clients, developing a dashboard that offers a deep, real-time understanding of case and program status. It gives Alameda, for the first time, a complete understanding of each individual's situation, all in one place. This helps the county ensure that clients are being well served and also enables caseworkers to identify programs that might work better for them.

New technology supports a shift from data capture and reporting to detecting patterns and deriving new insight. With this shift, it is possible to rethink how benefits and services are delivered. Instead of waiting for an incident to happen, we might be able to predict people who are vulnerable and invest in preventive services and avoid costs of rehabilitation or remediation. We might be able to identify specific situations from hidden data and re-prioritize so the most urgent cases are weighted over the less urgent -- whether it be a fraud case or an obvious case requiring intervention. In this way, individual citizen outcomes can be improved and program funding spent more effectively -- all through smarter social programs.

RightRail_Info_Promo.jpgDiscover more. Click to view our infographic on how smarter social programs help caseworkers better serve clients.


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Citizen-Centered Services

Martin Duggan

In cities across the country, social-service organizations are focused on breaking down operational barriers and bringing benefits together across overlapping agencies.

Smarter Governments Need Smarter Benefits and Services

Martin Duggan

Every needy citizen has different requirements and circumstances--so social programs must move beyond a one-size-fits-all approach to service delivery.

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