Recent disaster relief operations have highlighted the need for increased federal involvement in relief operations planning and execution.  Specifically, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), Office of Human Services Emergency Preparedness and Response (OHSEPR) has been charged with providing leadership in human services emergency preparedness and response. A particular mandate for the ACF, despite recent technical and financial commitments from the federal government, is for further improvements in disaster relief case management. 

The sought after level of disaster case management includes an IT platform that serves multiple functions, including case management and resource database capabilities.  The IT system should automate and support all case management functions, including intake, screening, assessment, plan development, referrals, recovery plan goal tracking, and closeout.  It should also support program administration, monitoring, and reporting by providing compliance and performance monitoring reports to ACF, contractor management, and case management supervisors. 

In this initiative, KBSI is designing and developing a Disaster Case Management Platform (DCP) for the Office of Human Services Emergency Preparedness and Response (OHSEPR).  The DCP will assist the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), as well as other federal, state, and voluntary agencies, by facilitating a timely and coordinated approach to assessing disaster-related needs as well as existing healthcare and mental health and human services needs that may adversely impact recovery if not addressed.  In addition to supporting the life cycle of disaster case management, the DCP will support advanced, customizable reporting and analytics to facilitate resource optimization, templates and statistical parameter estimation for different disaster scenarios, as well as the analysis of factors affecting the success of case management.  The DCP will improve the efficiency of the disaster case management (DCM) process by assisting OHSEPR in identifying, delivering and closing out services to individuals adversely impacted by disasters nationwide. 

The first phase of this initiative will focus on gathering requirements, studying the existing system and software modules that could be leveraged for the DCP technology, and designing and architecting a DCP system that meets ACF’s requirements. 

The DCP will support the full lifecycle of a disaster event:  Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.  Supported capabilities will include data collection, cataloging, and analysis; information productions and dissemination; protection and management of sensitive information; communication and coordination with other agencies; and identification, management, planning, and scheduling of critical resources.  Data gathered during a disaster will be analyzed to help in predicting future needs for resources and human services.