Michigan State Government Uses Technology to Enhance Child Protection Services

Two branches of Michigan state government are sharing information and using advanced analytics to better protect and care for children in a program slated to expand this year.

The State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) and the Michigan Department of Human Services (MDHS) have piloted a program in Genesee, Saginaw and Livingston counties aimed at measuring and improving performance and accountability in cases involving child abuse, neglect, foster care, adoption, and legal guardianship among the 16,000 children enrolled in child welfare services in Michigan. The program will expand to include additional performance measures this year.

The goal is to improve children’s safety, health and living situation stability – known as "permanency” – and to improve compliance with due process and timeliness in the court’s disposition of cases.

Both agencies are working in partnership with Ingenix, a leading health information, technology and consulting company, which is developing the analytics and performance measurements for the program. SCAO and MDHS data are included in Michigan’s statewide data warehouse – one of the most comprehensive in the nation – which serves as the informational and analytical backbone for the project.

"This collaboration with MDHS and the use of advanced technologies will help us achieve our ultimate goal of improving the lives of Michigan’s children,” said State Court Administrator Carl Gromek. "Our goal is to do a better job protecting the children in our care, who may be in an abusive or neglectful environment, by measuring our performance and prioritizing the areas that need improvement most.”

"We’re pleased to work with SCAO on this ambitious effort,” said DHS Director Ismael Ahmed. "It’s an excellent example of working not only across agencies, but across branches of government, to achieve a worthwhile goal – in this case, doing everything we can to protect children.”

The specific performance measurements, 62 in all, are based on recommendations in a white paper titled Building a Better Court: Measuring and Improving Court Performance and Judicial Workload in Child Abuse and Neglect Cases, published jointly by the American Bar Association’s Center of Children and the Law, the National Center for State Courts, and the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges.

The measurements are divided into five areas:

• Safety: To ensure that children are safe from abuse and neglect while under court jurisdiction
• Permanency: To ensure that children have stability and permanency in their living situations
• Due Process: To ensure that cases are dealt with impartially and based on evidence before the court
• Timeliness: To enhance the "expedition to permanency” by minimizing the time from filing of the petition to take jurisdiction over the child to permanency
• Well-being: To examine and address factors other than safety and permanency that relate to a child’s future welfare. There are specific measures within this area that focus on physical health, mental health, and special education needs.

The Michigan program has been in the pilot stage for the past year. So far nine of the 62 measures for Genesee, Saginaw and Livingston counties have been completed. The nine measures, compiled from data already stored on the data warehouse, will be expanded during 2010. SCAO’s Child Welfare Services (CWS) division was awarded a federal Court Improvement Program (CIP) grant to help fund the project.

Measurements in the five areas provide officials with the opportunity to improve performance in very specific ways. For example, the "Timeliness” category measurements include: "Number of days from initial petition to adjudication” of court cases, and "number of hours from initial complaint intake to the commencement of the investigation.” The "Permanency” measurements include: "number of placement changes each child has had during each foster care episode;” and "number of children who are dismissed from court jurisdiction at age 18 and over and have two or more of the following within 6 months of emancipation,” with the choices that follow including high school diploma/GED, steady employment, housing, entering college or trade-school, and several others. "Well-being” measurements include "percentage of cases where children are placed together” and "percentage of children with identified health needs receiving services to address the need.”

The program is already delivering results. For example, from late 2008 through August of 2009, the State increased family reunifications 34 percent among temporary court wards (TCW). This is a group of children who were identified in a Michigan children’s rights lawsuit as having remained in the system for one year or longer. By combining the "timeliness” and "permanency” measures, the State can identify and work on reuniting children with their families, thereby bringing them to a more permanent living situation faster.

"Michigan has once again shown its national leadership by using advanced technologies to address pressing societal issues – in this case, the protection of children,” said Shelby Solomon, executive vice president, commercial and government health plan solutions at Ingenix. "We are pleased to be part of this breakthrough initiative that facilitates collaboration between two branches of Michigan’s government to conduct the analysis necessary to improve the well-being of these children.”

Michigan began its work with Ingenix in 1994 with the creation of the nation’s first Medicaid data warehouse to monitor claims for quality of care, overpayment and fraud/abuse. Since then, Ingenix and Michigan have worked closely to expand the data warehouse to include information from most of the state’s largest programs, agencies and departments, including SCAO, MDHS, and the State’s Department of Community Health (MDCH).

About Michigan SCAO
The Michigan State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) is the administrative agency of the Michigan Supreme Court, charged with helping the trial courts operate effectively so that they can better serve the public. Among its many responsibilities are: collecting data on courts’ caseloads, including the types of cases each court hears and how long it takes to resolve cases; and overseeing courts’ involvement in various child welfare issues, and offering ways to improve courts’ handling of cases involving children who are or may become court wards.

About Michigan DHS
The Department of Human (DHS) is Michigan's public assistance, child and family welfare agency. DHS directs the operations of child protection, child welfare, public assistance and service programs through a network of over 100 county Department of Human Services offices around the state. Last year, DHS fielded more than 124,000 complaints of child abuse or neglect, and currently serves more than 16,000 children in foster care, residential, or adoptive placement.

About Ingenix
Ingenix, a UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) company, is a leading provider of health information, technologies and consulting services. Organizations, institutions, businesses and government agencies that comprise the health care system depend on Ingenix solutions and insights to improve their performance. Visit www.ingenix.com for more information.