At MESC Day 2, An interview with NESCSO Executive Director Brenda Harvey

We have met dozens of government officials, healthcare innovators and technology professionals at the 2013 Medicaid Enterprise Systems Conference (MESC) this week.

We have met dozens of government officials, healthcare innovators and technology professionals at the 2013 Medicaid Enterprise Systems Conference (MESC) this week. While we always look forward to meeting the newest faces in healthcare IT, we were especially happy catch up to a familiar MESC attendee, NESCSO Executive Director Brenda Harvey. Brenda heads the New England States Consortium Systems Organization, a non- profit organization whose goal is to improve communication and collaboration between states to exchange knowledge and services that will maximize healthcare program efficiency.

NESCSO, the coordinator of the conference, is comprised of the Health and Human Services agencies of New England states Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, as well as the University of Massachusetts Medical School. We sat down with Brenda to get some insight into what she thought about the MESC this year. Brenda highlighted the unique sense of collaboration at the conference, and noted that every attendee shared information they believe will benefit the Medicaid industry, freely. Though the attendees are sharing information, Brenda urges those not at the conference to pay attention to the issues the attendees are attempting to solve. “We are talking dollars in your pocket. [The MESC] is a place where that discussion is taking place for five days,” she said. Finally, we discussed CNSI’s Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) partnership with the health agencies of both Michigan and Illinois.

The partnership, Medicaid as a Service (MaaS), allows Illinois to share Michigan’s MMIS and significantly reduce costs. Upon learning about the program, Brenda said, “NESCSO has had a vision of helping states share services, save costs, save development time and really leverage one another’s strengths. So if a state has a solution to something that really works, I don’t believe that the work in the neighboring state is so different that [the solutions] can’t really ultimately be shared in some way.” If you are at the conference download our free MESC agenda app from your iPhone or iPad app store by searching for “MESC” or clicking here. We will also be live tweeting from the event. Follow @CNSICorpand join our conversation by using the hashtag #the2013mesc.