Mathematica Provides Expertise to Amazon Web Services on Improving Medicaid Through Technology

A new white paper from Amazon Web Services (AWS) highlights ideas from the Medicaid community, recommending ways they can use technology to improve programs. Mathematica’s Medicaid experts were among those who contributed to the paper, given the company’s more than 50 years of providing analytics, information technology, and technical services to a diverse client base. Mathematica is contracted to support millions of people that receive care through the Center for Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) Services and 18 state agencies that administer Medicaid.

“State Medicaid agencies must consider at least three areas: people, process, and systems—before they can define health care outcomes such as access to and quality of care,” says Paul Messino, principal researcher and Mathematica’s state Medicaid area lead. “AWS does a great job synthesizing these points and providing vital information for Medicaid stakeholders that will spark new, open conversations about what works best.”

Mathematica’s engagements with state Medicaid clients have increasingly included extendable and scalable technical solutions, flexible data models, and analytic file structures and training support. This enables the technical solution to grow as the needs of states change, based on conversations with Mathematica and other industry partners.

AWS has identified four themes to accelerate the mission of the Medicaid program. which are (1) start with a vision and execute a process that works for your state, (2) take charge of your procurement, (3) get ready for change, and (4) put data at the center.

Compared with the technical solutions generated under the original Medicaid IT Framework, modularity—the degree to which software systems can be separated into reusable components— reduces risk by shrinking the size and scope of technology projects and enables states to design solutions that more directly meet user needs and elevate the role of data.

“Mathematica not only understands the raw data at face value but has deep subject matter expertise, informing our recommendations on how and to what end the data can be used,” added Messino. “We link policy to technology, helping clients see how each can reinforce the other.”