18F/18f.gsa.gov

---
agency: Health and Human Services
title: Updating critical state and local systems
subtitle: Extending impact to state and local governments
permalink: /what-we-deliver/hhs-states/
redirect_from: /project/hhs-states/
excerpt: Working with Health and Human Services to help states implement best practices and upgrade legacy systems.
image: /assets/img/projects/hero_stateandlocal.jpg
image_accessibility: "Photograph of people meeting in small groups during a workshop"
project_weight: 3
tag: state and local practice
expiration_date:
github_repo:
project_url:
resources:
- "[Modular contracting resources for state and local governments](https://modularcontracting.18f.gov/)"
---

Health and Human Services (HHS) is a federal agency, but many crucial HHS programs — like Medicaid — are administered by states.

HHS encourages states to upgrade legacy systems by offering funding incentives, but many states struggle to manage risk and build usable systems while navigating federal and state contracting rules. HHS hired 18F to step in and help states set these projects up for success through the technology acquisition process.

<div class="small-caps">Approach</div>
### Reducing risk by breaking up contracts

In our first project with HHS, we helped California get on the right path to buying a new system for child welfare case management by facilitating a two-day workshop to break a monolithic contract into smaller pieces (along with colleagues from California’s Department of Social Services, the Office of Systems Integration, and Code for America).

Next, HHS asked us to work with other states who needed to procure case management systems for child welfare. We also began applying what we learned to a new challenge: working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Systems (also within HHS) to support states who were upgrading Medicaid data systems.