Software-as-a-Service: More than a Fad
There’s no denying that Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) has been the hot ticket in the IT world in recent years. Many government organizations have been gradually moving their systems to the cloud and realizing substantial benefits. The opportunity, however, is much bigger than just relocating applications. This is especially true for health and human services that cover a broad swath of human-centric programs delivered by a broad array of service providers. Individuals who expect more. Programs that need more. The complexity of these programs requires modern, interoperable technology solutions that increase security and data protection. As the program workflows and service structures evolve to support changing practices, the level of data integration and sharing needs will increase, as well.
But what exactly is SaaS; and why should you care? The obvious and most common definition is that SaaS is a software subscription model that allows users to access applications through the internet. There are a wide array of software solutions that are licensed this way, including products like Diona. These solutions have become quite attractive to consumers, non-government organizations (NGOs), and public service organizations in recent years for the many benefits the model offers.
One of the biggest benefits of SaaS is the reduction in capital outlay for hardware, facilities and staffing costs. The predictability of the subscription model allows for more stable budgeting and expense management. Typically, the SaaS provider includes upgrades in the subscription pricing which allows the users to benefit from feature enhancements and seamless upgrades. For example, software running on mobile devices has to be updated as mobile operating systems change. Using SaaS solutions helps organizations ensure updates to keep up with underlying technology changes are made to avoid impacts to their users.
SaaS solutions are also endorsed by federal funding partners, as an accepted solution for health and human services programs. In an industry where system implementations used to take five years (in some cases), one of the most attractive benefits is the speed to implement. With all of the changes that have been happening, the ability to quickly implement solutions to meet the needs of clients and internal operations has been critical to responding to the pandemic. An expectation that will last.
In addition to the standard CRM platforms, which may not provide all features that an organization needs, there are many ways that SaaS solutions can be deployed to specifically meet the needs of government programs. SaaS products can effectively integrate within modular architecture designs to obtain the best product to meet specific business functions. Here are a few examples of how Diona solutions are being used around the country:
Visits: Caseworkers must be in the community and serving people at the moment of need. Diona Visits is an enterprise solution that offers caseworkers and other stakeholders the freedom to leave their desks and spend more time doing the work that matters most.
Uploads: Benefit programs often require clients to provide supporting documentation such as birth certificates or utility bills. To avoid a paper-based, time-consuming, and error-prone process, clients and organizations need a solution that works the way people engage today—through smartphones and tablets.
Investigations: Investigators working in Child Welfare, Child Protective Services, Foster Care, Adult Protection, and Adult Services need ready access to the essential data, information, and note-taking capabilities when investigating allegations of abuse and neglect.
Client Self Service: When people can help themselves everyone wins. Organizations can improve service delivery and satisfy client needs—all while reducing costs—by literally putting service-enablement into clients’ hands.
These are just a few use cases for how SaaS can work to provide specific functions as a modular component of an enterprise architecture. Diona solutions interface with other back-office systems with bi-directional data exchanges to maximize functionality when and where you need, allowing for extensibility of your existing investments.
Human Services data is particularly sensitive. As such, it is understandable that organization leadership would want to keep the data close to home. What many CIOs, however, have found is that the SaaS solutions can offer significantly increased data protection and security. All reputable SaaS companies put data security as a top priority of their solution design and architecture. They hire the best people and invest in the solutions in a way that most government organizations are unable to do. Using the most secure hosting environments, encrypting in motion and rest, and providing robust failover and recovery mechanisms can give peace of mind to even the most skeptical of CIOs.
There is an important distinction between multi-tenant vs. multi-instance SaaS. A multi-tenant SaaS solution allows multiple customers to share the same underlying infrastructure and most commonly underlying databases. This doesn’t mean they are not secure, but there are increased complexities associated with protecting tenants from each other. This can also limit customization responsiveness. The multi-instance model, which is the model that is used by Diona, has dedicated technical infrastructure and database instance for every customer. Data separation is a more secure model that also allows for faster disaster recovery and agility in customization.
A key consideration when evaluating SaaS solutions is data sovereignty and support for enhanced security measures, such as the ones specified by FedRAMP/StateRAMP programs. All the major cloud vendors have dedicated data centers to host government workloads. These government clouds are specifically meant for sensitive workloads and adhere to security controls such as the ones described in FedRAMP. and StateRAMP. With increasing focus on data sovereignty, choosing SaaS solutions that can be deployed in cloud data centers that are located inside the borders of the nation should be a key consideration. At Diona, FedRAMP certified government cloud infrastructure is leveraged, while ensuring that data sovereignty requirements are met. SaaS solutions are the fastest growing area of technology. While it has been prevalently used by consumers for many years, there was skepticism in government due to the complexity of programs and data security concerns. These solutions have been proven in equally complex areas of healthcare, banking and more. Now is the time to leverage these capabilities to improve citizen experience, streamline operations, and maximize the potential of a public serving workforce. Diona is here to help, with SaaS solutions that deliver impact to critical public programs.