Power to the Public: Tackling Benefits Delivery
Channel: New America
Date: 10/06/2021

Effectively delivering benefits is one of the most challenging tasks our government faces due to broken processes, technologies, and communication. But as Hana Schank and Tara Dawson McGuinness discuss in their book, Power to the Public: The Promise of Public Interest Technology, some state agencies have flipped the script. When agency stakeholders, information technologists, service designers, and those in the field come together, they can streamline services and truly serve the public.

Join the authors, who head New America's Public Interest Technology and New Practice Lab programs, respectively, to hear about innovations and ongoing work that's bringing benefits delivery into the future. The roundtable discussion and Q&A will also cover what agencies can do today to remove roadblocks getting aid to citizens more effectively --and quickly.

During our webinar, Power to the Public: Tackling Benefits Delivery, the authors will interview experts on the work they’re doing with a variety of agencies on programs such as Medicare, VA Appeals, Medicaid, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on efforts to improve digital services, and the low-hanging fruit . For example, our speakers will discuss how they were able to transform Vermont’s benefits delivery from a paper-based application process that required field office visits to one that is fully automated -- cutting the time to benefit delivery in half. The speakers, who will detail the good, the bad, and the ugly of their work, include:

Sha Hwang, the COO and a co-founder at Nava Public Benefit Corporation, a non-profit launched during efforts to help fix HealthCare.gov.
Genevieve Gaudet, a service designer at Nava Public Benefit Corporation
Cass Madison, VP of partnerships at the Tech Talent Project
Cecilia Muñoz, Senior Advisor, New America

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