Infosys Public Services and District of Columbia Reach Milestone in Social IT Project

Infosys Public Services (IPS), a US subsidiary of Bangalore-based business consulting, IT and outsourcing firm Infosys, and the US District of Columbia’s Department of Human Services have reached a new milestone in their social IT project, the District of Columbia Access System (DCAS).
The District has received permission from Food and Nutrition Services (FNS), an agency within the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), to move the DCAS into the federally-mandated pilot production phase, according to a statement from IPS.
According to the statement, IPS finished application development in six months and the testing phase, made up of over 9,000 test cases, was completed in eight weeks.
“This project required us to draw on our healthcare expertise, legacy modernization solutions and strong program management and execution methodology to build the District’s new system in just six months. This has enabled the District to go live and move to the pilot stage in record time,” said Eric Paternoster, President and CEO of Infosys Public Services.
The DCAS project involves the modernization of DC’s complex eligibility and enrollment system for food assistance, cash assistance, and other social services benefit programs. Serving more than 200,000 DC residents, the new system will automate case administration, determine integrated eligibility, issue benefits and collect more detailed information about its registrants.
Infosys says its subsidiary has long been the IT partner of DC and has already laid the groundwork to move the district’s health service administration to the new system, subsequently modernizing the District’s legacy eligibility system for additional federal and local health and social programs.
The US accounts for 90 percent of all healthcare related contracts for Indian IT outsourcing firms, some of which are heavily reliant on Obamacare to rev up their revenue. Research firm Everest Group expects these healthcare related contracts to more than double to about $68 billion in 2020 from nearly $31 billion three years ago.
Thanks to President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, many health and human services organizations across the United States are modernizing their IT systems. Under this law, US states have to upgrade healthcare programs and build online exchanges where buyers can evaluate and select service providers.