CHALLENGE
Case management solutions make it easier to collect essential information so your agency experts can make critical decisions in serving customers and accomplishing your agency’s goals. The right case management system can help you process a significant but fluctuating workload, ensure consistent and accurate decisions, adapt promptly to law or policy changes, protect against threats, and integrate with multiple other agencies and systems. If your decision-making is straightforward and involves routine beneficiaries, you could use an off-the-shelf case management tool. But if you have to make complex decisions in a constantly evolving environment, you might need the customized and flexible solution REI Systems can modernize or develop in collaboration with your experts.
SOLUTION
With over 30 years of experience, REI Systems specializes in implementing advanced tools for managing the government’s mission-specific workload, including applications for funding and benefits, investigation and inspection, adjudication, and enforcement. We work closely with customers and stakeholders, take an Agile approach that adapts to evolving needs and expectations, and provide both custom and low code solutions that can be cloud based or operate on your own infrastructure. Additionally, we can advise on how to improve and optimize complex business processes to ensure your mission success.
Custom Case Management Solutions
REI Systems offers custom case management applications for federal agencies, supporting the lifecycle for cases that handle investigations, enforcement, adjudication, inspection, regulatory compliance, benefit applications, and other related activities. We use modern engineering approaches such as Human Centered Design, cloud-native microservices, and DevSecOps to create responsive, flexible, efficient case management applications. Additionally, our experts offer emerging technologies, including advanced data analytics, artificial intelligence, and blockchain to enhance system capabilities and optimize your case management process and its outcomes.
REI’s expertise with low-code platforms such as Appian and Salesforce and experience with building case management systems on these platforms, can help speed the development of your case management solution using a proven platform with accelerators for common tasks. We can work with your existing platform licenses or help you in acquiring the necessary platform. This low-code approach can be notably faster than customer alternatives, making it an ideal option for those who prioritize timely solutions.
Advisory Services for Case Management
We support needs assessment, analyses, strategy and performance planning, and process review. We conduct robust user research to identify pain points and challenges with existing processes and systems. We collaborate with you, stakeholders, and partners to identify and test the best opportunities to improve your case flow processes, speed, quality, and outcomes. We apply an integrated approach to Change Management to ensure the right solution is being built and that stakeholders are ready for (and eager participants in) the change.
Data & Analytics Services for Case Management
REI recognizes how important data and analytics are for case management – for work planning, detecting problems and improving performance, and for communicating and managing expectations of customers/beneficiaries. Thus we offer data and analytics tools and expertise to predict workload, risk, and opportunities for enhancing your services and outcomes while ensuring the security and integrity of data and decisions.
Our Case Management Model
REI’s Case Management Model demonstrates a thorough, best-practice process flow. We use this model to help evaluate an agency’s process, to identify strengths, weaknesses that can be improved, and gaps that may need to be filled. In every instance, we collaborate with our customers to explore the best processes for their needs.
BENEFITS
- Streamlined and accelerated case processing.
Digitize case intake/initiation, processing, adjudication, and resolution. Reduce error rates, streamline work for simplicity and speed, improve productivity, lessen manual administration, and automate tasks that do not require judgment. - Modernized technology to improve agility, innovation, and reliability.
Low-code platforms, or custom solutions using cloud-native Microservices and DevSecOps, built using Agile processes, approach help meet emerging needs, incorporate new ideas, and ensure continuous availability and improvement. - Simplified critical programmatic data and analytics.
Collect, house, process, aggregate and make more data visible to help make quicker and better decisions, identify waste, reduce redundancies, and justify the sustainment of mission programs. - Improved user and customer/beneficiary experience.
Human-centered design (HCD) creates usable, effective solutions, providing users with an intuitive experience, boosting productivity, and reducing on-ramp time for new users.
IMPACT
STREAMLINING VICTIM SUPPORT BY UPDATING SCMS FOR OTIP
The Office on Trafficking in Persons (OTIP) within the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) is committed to fighting human trafficking through prevention, public awareness, and victim assistance. Their tool, Shepherd Case Management System (SCMS), is a secure platform
facilitating aid requests for trafficking victims.
In response to the increasing demand from growing victim numbers, REI collaborated with OTIP to modernize SCMS. The project involved hosting SCMS on the FedRAMP AWS cloud infrastructure and automating its development using AWS Cloud Formation, Code Deploy, and Cucumber tools.
REI used microservices and open-source technologies to avoid unnecessary licensing costs and vendor dependency. This modernization led to significant savings for OTIP and increased efficiency. Now, with the same staff, they can serve almost double the number of victims at twice the speed. The updated system paves the way for implementing new AI capabilities, which hold great potential in preventing and reducing human trafficking.
MODERNIZING IMMIGRATION BENEFIT CASE MANAGEMENT FOR USCIS
Faced with a surge in immigration benefit applicants, USCIS sought a multi-vendor environment to help refine their case management technology, the Electronic Immigration System (ELIS). REI’s strategy involved user-centric design, automated testing, cloud hosting, and microservices — all part of our Mindful Modernization® approach.
Starting small, we gradually phased out 12 outdated systems, integrating ELIS with over 60 other federal IT systems. This simplified system complexity and improved reliability, leading to an annual savings of $2 million in operation and maintenance costs for USCIS.
The revamped ELIS system proved its efficiency by processing 19% more naturalization applications without the need for additional staff. It also improved quality and consistency in final case management decision-making, and decreased appeals to USCIS’ Ombudsman by 20%.
ENHANCING AIMS TO SAFEGUARD THE NATION
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is critical to protecting consumers from harmful or falsely labeled products. However, the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA), an arm of the FDA, was struggling with more than 30 disparate systems that weren’t working well together, making safeguarding public health very challenging.
REI partnered with the FDA to streamline ORA’s operations and create a more cohesive and effective system. We developed the Automated Investigative Management System (AIMS). AIMS, powered by Appian, is a comprehensive case management tool that manages complex, resource-demanding criminal investigations against FDA regulation violators. It handles everything from case referrals to judicial actions and evidence inventories, making the process smooth and efficient.
Our solution blended modern tech strategies, including Agile software development, DevSecOps, containerization, and FedRAMP cloud capabilities — all anchored by the Appian low-code platform. This mix allowed ORA to strengthen security measures, ensure 508 compliance, and
boost overall system performance.
But REI didn’t stop there. We integrated automated testing into a CI/CD pipeline to increase the speed of innovation and migrated legacy system data to AIMS in stages. A phased approach meant that the existing system could continue operating without disrupting users while developing the new, modernized application.
INCREASING SPEED ACROSS USPTO TRADEMARK PROCESSING
USPTO faced a significant application backlog and spent over five years working with several vendors to enhance its Trademark Product Line (TMPL), which streamlines the processing time across the lifecycle of a trademark application. REI’s approach involved user-centric design, mobile-accessible models, Agile methodologies, and emerging technologies to increase the speed of TMPL applications. Additionally, our strategy maintained compliance with NIST, FISMA, and FedRAMP standards.
Modernizing the TMPL simplified the application process, increased system accessibility, and improved the quality and consistency in final trademark decision-making. REI’s collaboration with USPTO grew trademark case processing by 7.5% and the agency’s quality rating to 98.5% — reducing the case backlog by over half.
