After six months of work and input from stakeholders, employees and executive staff, the Health and Human Services System Transition Plan has been submitted to the Health and Human Services Transition Legislative Oversight Committee, the Legislative Budget Board, the Offices of the Governor, Lieutenant Governor and Speaker of the House.
The transition plan outlines the process toward a transformed and restructured health and human services system. The concepts and functional charts featured in the plan were largely developed by 13 staff workgroups with input from a variety of sources, including HHS agency stakeholders who provided comment through eight regional stakeholder meetings and an online survey, and more than 4,400 HHS employees who responded to their own online survey. The workgroups also used data from a system-wide functional review and input from leadership from each of the five HHS agencies to guide development of the proposed restructuring.
According to HHSC Deputy Executive Commissioner for Transformation Chris Adams, the transition plan is a blueprint which will guide the build-out of the restructured system.
“The transition plan outlines what the structure of the transformed HHS system will look like,” Adams said. “It does not show detailed program assignments or staff changes. Moving forward, the workgroups will focus on additional refinement of the program and organizational structure, with the continued goal of making information about services and access to those services easier for clients, breaking down organizational silos, connecting like functions and strengthening the overall delivery of services.”
The foundation of the transition plan is built on the core HHS functions identified in the legislation that created HHS transformation. The core functions are:
- Medical and social services
- Regulatory services
- Facility operations
- Public health services at DSHS
- Protective services at DFPS
The plan also has sections dedicated to administrative supports for those core functions:
- Information technology
- System support services
- Internal audit
- Communications, press relations, stakeholder and government relations and ombudsman functions
- Financial services
- Legal services
- Procurement and contracting services
The transition plan will be posted online March 1 in the HHS Transformation section of the HHSC website. The oversight committee will hold a public hearing March 31 to collect comments on the transition plan. Learn more about the public hearing on the Texas Legislature Online web page.
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