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From Silos to Seamless: Transforming Provincial Digital Services with User-Centric Solutions

Written by Portage CyberTech | Nov 1, 2023 7:04:19 PM

The efficient delivery of digital government services still lags behind those in the private sector. With a unique set of challenges faced by local, state and provincial administrators in these highly regulated environments, the constituent experience often pays the price.

From disconnected services to confusing, overly numerous points of access, governments of all sizes can benefit from a digital strategy that centers on coordinating the activities of multiple ministries into a consolidated, secure and easy-to-use, digital access point.

The following example scenario is the story of Max, a provincial CIO, whose challenges are representative of the challenges of many provinces and states across North America.

Setting the Scene

Max is a provincial CIO invested in improving citizens’ lives with quality digital services.

Unfortunately, his province has encountered two major issues that have been holding back its digital transformation. Citizens have reported low levels of satisfaction with the quality of disconnected services and the disruptions that have historically accompanied the implementation of a new technology tool or process.

Max believes in his province’s digital strategy and wants to find ways to ensure that it can better serve its citizens’ digital needs.

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Solving Siloed Services

As a fellow citizen, Max has experienced firsthand how frustrating his province’s siloed services can be.

Healthcare, taxes, and driver’s licenses are all separate services requiring their own authentication procedures. Max isn’t surprised to hear his own frustrations reflected in citizens’ comments.

Not only do citizens find it difficult to navigate so many disparate, disconnected services, but they also express concerned about the amount of personal information they must provide to authenticate themselves.

For example, citizens complain that they cannot renew their health cards without visiting multiple websites or filling out numerous forms that they have already previously fulfilled.

In addition, it is unclear why the information they have already provided to verify their identity for the purpose of getting prescription drug insurance is not sufficient to authenticate them within the health card renewal ecosystem.

Max wants to consolidate provincial digital services and ensure that citizens know how their information is used. By authorizing citizens to have control over their digital footprint, they can give informed consent for the use of their personal data.

A solution such as CitizenOne and its Services Catalog Accelerator (SCA) feature would enable Max to bring together all the province’s digital services in one place, organized by category on dedicated cards via the SCA’s customizable dashboard.

He is particularly pleased to see that he will be able to list all health-related services on one card, including health card renewals, prescription drug insurance, and even appointment bookings.

Furthermore, by implementing CitizenOne’s SCA, different ministries can make decisions relating to specific cards without compromising the user experience with unnecessary complexities. This includes managing user consent for sharing private information in a manner that safeguards privacy.

Improving Services Without Sacrificing Citizen Satisfaction

Max’s province recently launched a new online platform for programs to support new parents.

Access to these programs previously required new parents to access multiple websites and complete several separate applications.

A new platform was launched to streamline access to the programs and ensure citizens looking to start or grow their families were aware of all the options available to them.

Unfortunately, upon program launch, there was a significant period during which the services were not available.

Many new parents were frustrated with the prolonged service interruption, an issue that Max would like to avoid in the future.

CitizenOne’s SCA’s self-service configuration and standards-based protocols ensures a seamless integration with existing systems. The platform minimizes service interruptions thanks to years of testing, easily pushing through updates for users quickly and efficiently.

Furthermore, CitizenOne’s SCA would also allow Max’s province to safeguard compliance by automating security updates, should it choose to do so.

Complex System, Simple Solution

Like many governmental bodies, Max's province can ensure that its digital services run smoothly by using a consolidated solution.

CitizenOne’s SCA was designed to be a flexible, configurable tool for governments to easily integrate into their existing digital toolkit.

Its inherent security features, consent-based approach to data privacy, interoperability, and intuitive UX can help governments of all sizes accelerate their digital strategy.

Find out more about CitizenOne’s Services Catalog Accelerator and how it can improve your province or state’s digital services.