The Biggest Civic Tech Job Opportunity in the Bayou State
By: Alan Joseph Williams
Tags: Jobs, Civictech, Governent, Health, Tech

By Alan Williams of Code for America & Sarah Miller of Audacious Inquiry

Louisiana Department of Health is looking for a Deputy Director for Systems Modernization and Operations within its Medicaid Program. If you are a technology leader in the Gulf South, whether in the private sector or public sector, this job is for you.

It’s a big title for a big job. Louisiana’s Medicaid Program is looking for a talented technologist to help achieve an important mission: helping everybody in Louisiana own their own health, and the health of their families.

What does that mean? Well, in Louisiana it means a major change in the quality of life, productivity, and health outcomes for hundreds of thousands of people.

Despite all of Louisiana’s exceptional qualities, people in the state endure some of the worst health outcomes in the country. In their 2016 report, the United Health Foundation found that Louisiana ranked 49th among states in overall health outcomes and 47th in preventable hospitalizations.

The Louisiana Department of Health is the state’s premier institution dedicated to changing those rankings. Through policy and through service delivery, the LDH is making huge strides towards improving the number of residents that have insurance, receive preventive care, and find life threatening illnesses as early as possible.

Last year, Louisiana expanded Medicaid, enrolling over 400,000 residents into the health insurance program that otherwise would not have coverage. In just over a year, the uninsured rate in the state has plummeted from 27.1% to 12.7%. Over 100,000 of the newly insured have received preventive care. This expanded coverage was possible only because the Louisiana Department of Health was able to deliver — ensuring IT system capacity and readiness, managing changes across a complex ecosystem of vendors and services, and supporting new outreach and enrollment strategies.

There is still more work to be done. Systems that underpin eligibility and enrollment, claim processing, and health information are all in need of ongoing maintenance and modernization. If Louisiana’s rankings are going to truly improve, more of the 500,000 Louisianians who remain uninsured will need to be covered, the quality of care will need to improve, and innovation will need to be supported

LDH needs someone with a strong vision for how technology can implement program priorities for the benefit of Louisianans. Being able to be trusted partner to and translate between the department’s policy directors and the technology team, and vice versa, is the single most important characteristic of a successful candidate. LDH seeks a natural leader who is committed to making a difference in the lives of Louisianans every day.

For the Louisiana technology community, this position is without a doubt one of the state’s premier opportunities to give back to the great state. For any technologist in the Gulf South region, this position represents an incredible opportunity to oversee the next generation of a large, mission-critical technology operation.

For more information about this position, contact Sarah Miller at SMILLER@AINQ.COM