NASCIO honors 10 innovative IT programs
Connecting state and local government leaders
The National Association of State CIOs last month honored 10 state government programs for IT excellence. The winners were announced at NASCIO's annual conference in St. Louis.
The National Association of State CIOs last month honored 10 state government programs for IT excellence. The winners were announced at NASCIO's annual conference in St. Louis.
NASCIO culled the winners from 127 nominations by 33 states. Judges selected the winning entries based on their longevity, importance to the operation of government, taxpayer benefits and money saved.
Wisconsin won an accessibility award for its captioned telephone technology project. The program used voice recognition technology to improve the speed and accuracy of relay phone service to hearing-impaired callers.
Arizona won a communications infrastructure award for its Telecommunications Open Partnerships for Arizona. Begun in October 2000, TOPAZ helped to deploy broadband Internet connections to 209 Arizona cities and reduce the monthly cost of a T1 line from $3,000 to $500.
The District of Columbia won for its online business resource center at www.brc.dc.gov in the category of government to business. The site lets businesses pay licensing fees and business taxes online.
In the government-to-citizen category, Massachusetts won for its educator licensure and recruitment project, which lets teachers apply for teaching licenses online.
Washington received kudos in the government-to-government category for the Washington State Combined Application Program, which aims to improve delivery of food stamps to elderly, blind and disabled adults.
Michigan won in the enterprise information architecture category for its Community Health Department data warehouse, which it uses to detect fraud and abuse, reduce costs and improve health care.
For innovative use of technology, Texas won for ClinicStation, a Web system developed by a team at the University of Texas' M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. It lets doctors share medical images and respond to patient queries.
North Carolina's Office of IT Services won in the security and business continuity category for keeping the state's systems running despite hurricanes, tornadoes, fire and human error. North Carolina also won a special award for providing Internet access to poor citizens in rural areas.
Iowa won in the state IT management initiatives category, for its system to determine the actual return on investment from IT projects.
Details about the winning programs are on the NASCIO Web site, at https://www.nascio.org/awards/index.cfm.
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