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Weekly UpdatesThere are reasonable arguments that technology, particularly its use in communication and information sharing, has latent negative consequences in contemporary society. Credible examples of these consequences are depersonalization of relationships, a decrease in face-to-face interaction, and the erosion of language and literacy that results from communicating-in-code when texting and twittering.
Those of us involved in providing public services are likely to focus on the potential "light" rather than "dark side" of technology. Once it has been developed and tested in prototype, it helps us work smarter and faster. However, depending on our role in service provision, there are different perspectives on technologies' limitations or its potential reach in terms of policy. Those of us working in the field, whether in an IT or a programmatic capacity, are conscious of its limitations since we struggle with the difficulties of implementation and organizational adaptation. We could perceive technology as mandated by policy but fail to consistently see the potential for the reverse relationship--for policy to be informed by technology. Even if aware of that potential, we can miss opportunities to facilitate its realization. Health and Human Services Information Management Systems offer a case in point.
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While focusing on such issues as quality assurance and technical assistance associated with technological change, it is easy to forget that the end game is not just to improve record keeping and data accuracy. The real end game is positive outcomes that improve the lives of children, youth and families. The relationships leading to that end game are presented as a paradigm in following figure:
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While public service providers are likely to support technological change, particularly if our work has benefited from it, we can also be prey to its downside. A colleague recently attended a conference for state information management professionals where a presenter made the point that the Internet Generation's immersion in and preference for technologically facilitated communication has reduced their capacity for empathy. We would add that the tendency for technology and policy to be frequently mentioned in the abstract also leads to a myopic perspective that ignores the human element. There are human beings whose lives can be made better at the end of the technology-policy-service delivery chain. It is notable that another presenter at the same conference used a video, featuring happy children and youth who had been placed in loving families through adoption, to make a similar point regarding the ease with which we can lose sight of the end game. Although technology is tangible for those working daily with database management and data analysis, we can lose ourselves in the mechanics of the task and forget that our efforts significantly influence the lives of others.
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Before drafting this article, we asked staff for examples of technology affecting policy in their work. A colleague providing technical assistance to states in child welfare information management systems mentioned a Southwestern state that he worked with using indicators that included rates of child abuse and neglect, as well as poverty, and demographic data from the census, to allocate resources to better deal with localities presenting as high risk. One needs to have knowledge of the work done by all original sources of these data and the technology used to facilitate that work to fully appreciate this as an example of the technology/data/policy relationship. We don't know if this synthesis of information and analysis was used to inform policymakers beyond the allocation of resources or to what extent it was shared beyond the organization or the state.
In terms of utilization specific to the organization, however, data synthesis and analysis have long been used in planning and resource allocation in service domains other than child welfare. Michele Davis first became aware of this in the late 1980s when she worked in Chicago with a state agency providing research and technological support to the Chicago Police Department. Computer Modeling identifying hot spots for gang and other criminal activity was used to more efficiently allocate resources by dispatching officers based on a number of factors, including socioeconomic data and past patterns of offending.
At a broader level, technology can be directed to effect systemic change to correct duplication and to coordinate the provision of services across systems and service domains. Policy that is informed by the effective use of technology can, in turn, address the needs of target groups eligible for service in separate systems such as child welfare and juvenile justice more efficiently and cost effectively. While we recognize the inefficiency of operating as separate "silos" of service provision, the tendency for the status quo and operational routine to obstruct proactive change continues. The thing that has changed recently that should trump the status quo is the current emphasis on transparency. The focus on outcomes-based planning and assessment in health and human services is critical to improving organizational and systemic transparency and identifying ways to coordinate planning within and across systems and service domains. Technology is critical for outcomes-based planning and transparency because it allows us to measure outcomes in the aggregate. Technology has created a paradigm shift by making it possible to measure and compare outcomes and examine trends in data amassed for large populations from the community to the national level. Although the debate about the use of random sampling continues unresolved, the U.S. Census is the most obvious example of this. Our use of census data has evolved so that it is no longer used only in a massive head count or determinant of political representation, but as a tool for planning public and private programs and services.
With the evolution in our thinking about data, its improved automation has revitalized a movement that proposes using indicators to assess the overall viability of society. The term "society" is a dicey one because we tend to reify it, using the word as if it had an existence of its own, apart from us. We are society. The viability of a society is dependent on the well-being of its individual members as part of a collective or aggregate. The previous sentence suggests that the topic lends itself easily to abstraction and is an example of the slippery slope of conversations that touch on technology in combination with policy.
There is a body of work with an underlying vision pointing the way out of this dilemma. The Russell Sage Foundation began the development of what are now called "community indicators" in 1910. The foundation provided technical assistance to over 2,000 local surveys on a wide variety of social issues, including education, recreation, public health, crime and general social conditions. The development of social indicators was eclipsed by purely economic indicators until a renaissance in the 1960s and 70s.
Contemporary proponents of social or community indicators also promote the use of diverse measures such as accessibility of health care, quality of education, adequacy of housing and family income to assess the nation's social health. They have had some success in expanding their public audience. The concept "quality of life," once used only in graduate programs in policy and research, has become common vernacular. Annual "report cards" on child and family well-being such as Annie Casey Foundation's KIDSCOUNT, based on indicators reflecting different stages in the life-cycle, including rates of infant mortality, child poverty, child abuse, high school completion, and unemployment, are now widely quoted by the national media as well as human service practitioners and researchers.
The Social Indicators Movement of previous decades called for an Index of Social Health that had stature and commanded public attention comparable to the country's economic indices like the Dow Jones Average and the Gross Domestic Product. Once focused on national indicators of social health, the proponents of social indicators as informants of policy, until now, have had minimal success in pressing their case that the use of empirical evidence and long-term analysis should be systematically used by national policymakers. In part, this could be due to a less than complimentary comparison of the social health of the United States with that of other nations published in some of their annual reports since the mid-1980s. The more recent work in the Social Indicators field is less ambitious in terms of escalating public awareness and media attention on a level paid economic indicators. The movement has also increased its attention to local and state governments and service providers.
The Institute for Innovation in Social Policy, now housed at Vassar University, included a "Memo to the States" in its 2008 report on "The Social Health of the States."
The indicators referenced here are drawn from information management systems developed and maintained by states using a range of technological tools to do this work.
The recognition that "technology is our friend" comes at a fortuitous time for the national, state and local dynamic and policy continuum. The Obama administration has made the need for transparency paramount. All of us with roles in human service provision share in this "onus" of accountability. It is critical to recognize, as noted in a retrospective on Social Indicators Movement published over 10 years ago that, "you are more likely to move from indicators to outcomes if you have control over resources." We have an advantage, however, that can be leveraged in the current era of "transparency" in governing and public service. Our thoughtful use of technology contributes to better control over resources and is the engine driving the movement from indicators to outcomes.
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