David Wieters, chief operating officer for the Department of Health and Human Services, told the Division III Finance committee the department currently supports roughly 130 applications and is concentrating development and operations on eight key platforms to reduce duplication and improve efficiency.

Wieters said the department has cut application count from roughly 200 to about 130 over six years and listed the key platforms: the Medicaid enterprise system (a suite of about 14 sub-systems), an enterprise business-intelligence system (EBI), New Hampshire Care Connections (NH Care Connections), Granite Families (the successor to Bridges for child-welfare case management), New Heights (integrated eligibility/enrollment, including NH Easy), Options (aging/adult-services system), Avatar (electronic health record at New Hampshire Hospital) and Salesforce-based solutions.

Wieters highlighted the department’s use of portfolio management, PMBOK and agile methods to manage about 200 projects a year and said the Salesforce platform has enabled the department to deliver some solutions in days rather than months. He gave a specific example: during the COVID response the department implemented Granite Trace for case investigation and patient monitoring “in 3 days over a weekend.”

Wieters said DHHS is coordinating closely with the Department of Information Technology and is prioritizing privacy and security as it expands data sharing and dashboarding to support the roadmap. He told the committee that Thursday’s deeper presentations will show how specific technologies support roadmap initiatives and how the department is aligning human-resources assignments with IT priorities.

No procurement or budget actions were decided during the hearing; the presentation was informational and staff said they will return with more technical and budget detail in later sessions.