Patient Characteristics Survey (PCS), MHARS Enhancement and Transformation (MEAT), Aid to Localities Financial System (ALFS)

Client Background: 

New York State has a large, multi-faceted mental health system that serves more than 700,000 individuals each year. The Office of Mental Health (OMH) operates psychiatric centers across the State. OMH also regulates, certifies and oversees more than 4,500 programs, operated by local governments and nonprofit agencies. These programs include various inpatient and outpatient programs, emergency, community support, residential and family care programs. The Mission of the New York State Office of Mental Health is to promote the mental health of all New Yorkers, with a particular focus on providing hope and recovery for adults with serious mental illness and children with serious emotional disturbances. 

Project Description:

Project Name:

Patient Characteristics Survey (PCS), MHARS Enhancement and Transformation (MEAT), Aid to Localities Financial System (ALFS).

Project Description:

The Patient Characteristics Survey project is a biannual survey conducted by the OMH. This project consists of a rewrite of the survey utilizing modern application and interface design as well as incorporating changes for the 2019 survey. The MHARS Enhancement and Transformation project will also employ the use of modern technical architecture and design principles in order to ensure continuity of service to the patients served by the OMH.

V Group’s Deliverables :

V Group has worked with OMH in this multi-facet project by supporting in management of requirements through the life of the contract using a requirements management plan and traceability to ensure coverage between the source of each requirement and the test case(s). V Group’s team has been involved in Project Management excellent by providing the leadership in SDLC cycle by working closely with project manager, ITS manager, technical team members and other project stakeholders.

For non-software development assignments, V Group’s team has work closely with Business Systems Analyst and other stakeholders to provide leadership and recommend/execute best approach to problem.

Since it was a wide spread project across multiple cross function teams, V Group has worked as a liaison to stakeholders and Subject Matter Experts to elicit, analyze, communicate, validate and verify the requirements for complex changes to current business processes, policies and information systems and for the development of new business processes, policies and information systems. We have created as-is and to-be business process flows to ensure that the implemented business process and supporting software meets the OMH’s needs, and conducted requirements workshops and JAD sessions with OMH subject matter experts as one of the many techniques to be used to elicit requirements.

The documentation of these core requirement involved creation of business requirements documents, context diagrams, business requirements document (BRD), system “as-is” and “to be” states, system specifications, use cases and workflow diagrams, report and screen mockups, swim lane diagrams, and prototypes. V Group’s team has also ensured that the artifacts required by ITS governance process and Secure Systems Development Lifecycle (SSDLC) are created and support the project scope.