DENVER, Colo.—The Governor’s Office of Information Technology (OIT) is pleased to announce that the State of Colorado received a national award today for its work to make Real Time Eligibility a reality for Coloradans applying for Medicaid.

OIT teamed up with Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF) to develop technology that allows between 70 and 80 percent of people applying for Medicaid to do so with PEAK Real Time Eligibility (RTE). The process of eligibility determination once took as long as 45 days. Because of RTE, that process is now down to 45 minutes in most cases.

Colorado was recognized for Innovation in Service Delivery at the 47th Annual IT Solutions Management for Human Services Conference in Atlanta. OIT’s Chief Information Officer Suma Nallapati says, “Our teams went above and beyond the call of duty to make Real Time Eligibility happen. Fifty-thousand hours of coding and sixteen-thousand hours of testing went into this.” She adds, “Despite limited resources and tight time constraints, OIT, HCPF and our partners at Deloitte worked as a team to put this valuable tool in place in time for the rollout of the Affordable Care Act in October of 2013.”

HCPF Executive Director Sue Birch says, “As one of the top states in the nation with Real Time Eligibility, Colorado really wants to inspire other states to take on this challenge. If Colorado can do it, they can do it, too.”

You may learn more about Colorado’s Real Time Eligibility at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS-vd8T1UqU

About OIT
The Colorado Governor's Office of Information Technology (OIT) is responsible for the operation and delivery of information and communications technology (ICT) services and innovation across all Executive Branch agencies in the State of Colorado. OIT’s charge is twofold: (1) to provide world-class IT services to Colorado’s Executive Branch agencies; and (2) to promote Colorado as the ideal location for IT companies and technology based workers.

OIT drives innovative technology solutions, provides quality service, and supports the agencies whose missions are so critical to serving Coloradans. We do this by overseeing technology initiatives at the state level, recommending strategies and maximizing efficiencies of service delivery in a cost-effective manner through the application of enterprise technology solutions. Our enterprise approach also enables the agile delivery of new applications to state agencies that improve citizen access to government services while increasing accountability and transparency.

OIT’s operational responsibility is vast and includes the development and support of enterprise and agency-specific (line of business) applications, projects, programs, and services, data centers, servers, mainframe operations, storage, operating systems, local area networks, as well as the Colorado State Network (CSN) and the public safety communications network, which includes the digital trunked and microwave radio systems. OIT is also responsible for information security across all three branches of state government. We monitor and analyze information on cyber threats and proactively manage vulnerabilities that present risk to the state's information systems or the critical information managed there within. This includes security risk management, security operations, regulatory compliance, and application security.

OIT also leads the state’s IT economic development efforts and works in conjunction with the Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT) to promote Colorado as the ideal location for IT companies and technology-based workers.

OIT is powering the work of the State of Colorado and making government more effective, efficient, and elegant, while at the same time protecting the State’s valuable information assets and lowering our costs.

Tauna Lockhart, Chief Communications Officer & PIO