The earlier personas, journeys, and concepts gave DCHS a picture of what a more integrated experience could look like. This section asks which parts of that picture have become real work, which remain intentions, and what should happen in what order.
DCHS Insights CX Human-Centered Design @ DCHS PROTOTYPE no real data DCHS Insights CX How We Integrate
How we make service integration a reality
Look at the real service-integration portfolio through the eyes of the clients introduced in Who We Serve, then use the five pillars and four-stage roadmap to see what is needed, what is missing, and what should be prioritized.
What have we completed to date? What is underway? What is planned?
Janice and Aboul & Hossina are composite personas whose journeys we mapped, and that exercise is what lets us ask this question from their side of the counter rather than from ours. The honest answer is that the completed column is thin — worth letting that land rather than softening it, because it is the most persuasive argument available for why the rest of this matters.
Read the portfolio as a plan
Use the client lens to move from what exists to what is missing, what matters most, what depends on what, and where there is enough readiness to begin.
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Start with the client lens
Carry Janice, Aboul & Hossina, and Marisol into this portfolio. Ask what clients would notice, what their journeys still need, what is missing from the work, and what that means for priority.
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Find the visible gaps
Look for a thin pillar, a persona need with no initiative, a missing client-visible result, or work that has no credible next stage.
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Test sequence and readiness
Name real dependencies and ask which team could begin—not only which idea matters most.
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Check the initiative detail
Confirm the description, partners, status, and persona effect with the people doing the work before treating the portfolio as settled.
Portfolio status
Completed, underway, and planned are initiative statuses, not maturity stages. Start with this three-way sort before introducing a framework.
Completed 2
Underway 10
DCHS Service Atlas One-Stop Shop Contact center modernization One-Stop Shop HCS Modern Case Management System Implementation Shared Knowledge PULSE — the weekly report Shared Knowledge Admin Services Integration One-Stop Shop Insights 360 Dashboards Shared Knowledge Credible Dashboard Shared Knowledge Same Day Access Integration Coordinated Care Community Analytics Dashboard Accountability DCHS Key Indicators (revision) Accountability
Planned 3
Questions for deciding what moves next
The original guiding questions are grouped here by the kind of decision they support. They apply in a workshop, a one-to-one, or an individual review.
Reality and gaps
What is missing?
Name one thing that would have changed Janice's morning, or Marisol's fifty minutes, and that nobody is working on. Anchored to a person the answer is specific enough to act on; unanchored it becomes a wish list.
Would any of this be visible to our personas?
If Janice walked in tomorrow, which of these would she actually notice? And Aboul and Hossina? It converts a list of organizational activity back into the terms that started the conversation.
Priority, sequence, and readiness
What do we prioritize?
Everything on this list is worth doing, which is exactly why the list is not a plan. If only two of these could move this year, which two — and what are we willing to say no to in order to protect them?
What has to come before what?
Some of this work only pays off in a particular order: screening for other needs is hard to justify before there is somewhere to refer people, and a referral system is hard to build before the catalog it draws on is trustworthy. Which dependencies are real, and which are just the order we happened to think of things in?
Which part of the organization is most ready to move?
Not which initiative matters most — which team could actually start, and why. That is the question only the people doing the work can answer, and it is worth more than a priority ranking.
The organizing model
How should we group this work, and what does progress look like?
A list of initiatives is not a roadmap. What are the right categories to sort them into, and what are the steps that count as getting further along? The maturity model further down this page is an initial sketch at both — five pillars to sort by, four stages to progress through. It is a starting point to argue with, not a settled answer.
Draft Maturity Model
The five pillars organize the work; the four stages describe increasing organizational capability. Each initiative is placed in the cell it is intended to move DCHS toward. Use the model to test sequence and gaps, not to assign a grade.
Use these definitions as the key to the five columns in the model.
One-Stop Shop
Creates a unified entry point for all services and consistent, predictable methods across every service area, to simplify our complex system for our clients and avoid the need for clients to repeat their story for each engagement. Staff see themselves as one team with a “no wrong door” mentality.
Universal Screening
Systematically identifies client needs across all service domains at every entry point, so that no critical need goes undetected. Through universal screening, every client interaction becomes an opportunity to see past the presenting issue to the full range of challenges someone may be facing.
Shared Knowledge
Ensures that all providers have access to relevant client information while maintaining privacy and consent: shared case management, real-time collaboration, unified communication channels, and 360-degree client profiles.
Coordinated Care
Coordinates and aligns services across programs to maximize impact and minimize gaps: joint service planning, synchronized interventions, warm handoffs, and integrated case management. Services work in concert rather than in isolation, so each intervention builds on and reinforces the others.
Collective Accountability
Instead of each program measuring only its own success and using inconsistent quality standards, collective accountability around the client's holistic outcomes means every partner is invested in that client's overall wellbeing and progress.
One-Stop Shop
Universal Screening
Shared Knowledge
Coordinated Care
Collective Accountability
0 Ad-hoc Personal heroics
Uncoordinated entry points.
Ad-hoc referrals and screenings for other needs. Program-by-program arrangements.
Siloed data systems. Knowledge held by individuals, not systems.
Planning in isolation. Informal communication across programs.
Program-by-program accountability framework (driven by external requirements).
1 Coordinated Planned and defined
Central entry point with clear navigation. Aligned “first-touch” process. Central service catalog.
Physical co-location (Mark Center) DCHS Service Atlas Wayfinder kiosksStandard, defined process and expectations for screening for needs. Shared referral platform.
Screening for (other) needs HCS-powered department-wide referral systemCommon client index and linked data. Department-wide data standards.
PULSE — the weekly report Insights 360 Dashboards Credible DashboardFormal protocols with defined cross-program arrangements for shared clients.
Same Day Access IntegrationDepartment standards and metrics for quality, outcomes, and customer feedback.
Community Analytics Dashboard DCHS Key Indicators (revision) 2 Integrated Uniform and quantitatively managed
Standardized processes using common forms. Cross-trained frontline staff. Robust self-service options.
Contact center modernization AI-Assisted Service Atlas Admin Services IntegrationUniversal screening of all clients using standard tool.
360° client profiles with role-based access.
HCS Modern Case Management System ImplementationCoordinated service plans. Unified client communication. Cross-trained clinical and case mgmt staff.
Department-wide client outcome and process tracking.
3 Person-centered Proactive and personalized · high-tech, high-touch
Unified eligibility determination. “Tell us once.” Dedicated service navigators.
Self-screening and scheduling. Automated eligibility checks.
Client portal. Client control over personal data access. Predictive service recommendations.
Integrated service plan. Lead (overall) case manager.
Shared accountability with community partners for population-level results. Public dashboards.
Each initiative sits in the cell it would move us to. Read the shape rather than the cells: a crowded column is where the department's effort already goes, and it is often not where anyone assumed. A nearly bare column is either not our problem or our biggest blind spot.
What the four stages mean Open the compact stage definitions
The four stages describe increasing organizational capability across every pillar. Progress in one pillar often depends on progress in another.
Ad-hoc
Personal heroicsIntegration depends on individual initiative and informal relationships rather than department-wide systems or processes.
Coordinated
Planned and definedPlans, roles, protocols, and practical coordination improvements are defined, but shared systems are not yet standard.
Integrated
Uniform and quantitatively managedShared knowledge, technology, and workflows make integrated service delivery the standard way DCHS works.
Person-centered
Proactive and personalized · high-tech, high-touchTechnology and coordinated practice enable proactive, individualized support while giving clients more control over their journey.
The model is a direction of travel, not a grade or a finish line. The aim is continuous improvement, not perfection.
Questions by pillar
Once the portfolio is organized, use these prompts to examine what would have to be resolved before work in each pillar can move forward.
One-Stop Shop
- “No wrong door” is a staff commitment before it is a system. What would have to change in how a team works for it to be true?
- Where does someone end up when they arrive at the wrong place — and does anyone find out?
Universal Screening
- Screening surfaces needs we then have to do something about. How do we make sure that the resulting referral doesn't go into a black hole?
- Who operates the instrument — the client, or a member of staff? The three prototypes make different choices.
- What is the smallest question set we could ask of all clients?
Shared Knowledge
- What information from across DCHS would help frontline staff recognize needs, explain options, and connect clients to the right program—and how should that information reach them in the flow of work?
- How can data collected separately by programs be translated into coherent, timely insights that help leaders see patterns, gaps, and shared outcomes?
- When information about a client needs to travel across programs, what should be shared, with whose consent, and who needs access to act?
Coordinated Care
- Who is accountable for a client that three programs are each partly serving?
- What are the key enablers for move towards joint service planning and communication, across programs?
Collective Accountability
- Almost everything we currently count is counted because somebody outside asked for it. What would we measure for our own benefit, even if nobody were asking?
- How can we move towards department-wide standards of quality; in which domains; and how can we track program performance against this common set of standards?
A short, sequenced set of commitments
The useful result is not approval of every initiative or of the model. Carry forward a small number of priorities with a client-visible result, a real dependency, a ready team, and a first step.
| Priority | Client-visible result | Dependency | Ready team or pilot | First step | Review point |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|