MESC: Certification & Validation

August 25, 2016

Categories: Thought Leadership

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As the town known for the Gateway Arch, St. Louis recently became known as the gathering place for Medicaid IT thought leaders—at least for a few days. Last week, the “Show-Me” state hosted the 2016 Medicaid Enterprise Systems Conference (MESC). With nearly 1,400 in attendance, the event was once again the place for the public and private sector to share ideas related to Medicaid systems and initiatives.

In our “Welcome” post last week, we highlighted the conference’s main theme—Modularity. Once the sessions kicked off, no one—including the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare (CMS)—wasted any time diving into what this term means for future of Medicaid system procurements and federally-matched funding, namely “Certification.”

Therefore, it was no coincidence that on day two of the conference, CMS released its third letter to State Medicaid Directors in which they provide guidance on procuring and building a certified Medicaid Information System. They even recently updated their Medicaid Enterprise Certification Toolkit (MECT) to reflect the industry shift to modularity, much of which they covered over the course of several conference panels.

 

It is also no surprise that in the sessions, the letter and as part of the toolkit, CMS put a heavy emphasis on “reuse” or—in layman’s terms—the ability for components and functionality to be shared across modules. To simplify ‘modular’ and ‘reuse’ even further, CMS used a stock image of Legos to illustrate the interlocking modular components of a Medicaid system.

When we saw it, another term came to mind—validation. You see. CNSI also made a timely announcement at MESC. We launched our Next Generation Modular Medicaid Platform, evoBrixTM. Inspired by Legos®—the classic children’s toy—our evoBrix has become the visual definition of our customized Medicaid solution. In addition, CNSI’s client, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, conference poster that depicted the transformed, modular world won for “Best Content.” Further proof that our approach and solutions are very much in sync with the vision that CMS has for modularity, certification and reuse. We look forward to seeing what we can build together. We’ll let you know what we come up with next year!