Red Hat SummitSuccess story
KPMG improves outcomes for state citizen services through a modern systems integration platform
Overview
KPMG built the KPMG Resource Integration Suite (KRIS) Connected Platform for the State of Tennessee Department of Human Services (TDHS) to help serve citizens most in need—and to do that fast. KRIS connects siloed monolithic legacy information systems that support citizen support services such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Family (TANF), and Low-Income Home Energy Assistance (LIHEAP). These services were previously fragmented and only accessible via individual offices.
The citizen services provided by TDHS were fragmented, and citizens had to visit different websites to access each individual service. TDHS wanted to give its residents faster access to its services in one place, and make them more comprehensive. It also decided to make new engagement channels available to residents including virtual, online, and remote services.
TDHS wanted to engage citizens through a single-entry point. Technology partner KPMG recognized that it needed a modular approach built on a layered enterprise architecture; loosely coupled development allows new services to be added at speed, which proved vital during the COVID-19 pandemic. Open source brings cost efficiency and mitigates vendor lock-in.
Red Hat’s enterprise solutions provide performance, scalability, portability, and security. Red Hat OpenShift is fundamental to KRIS’s cloud strategy. Red Hat brought not only hybrid cloud interoperability but also the same customer-first commitment as KPMG.
KRIS has wide applicability to other government agencies—including transportation—and commercial industries. It is already being adopted by Health and Human Services agencies in North Carolina and New Mexico for Medicaid modernization.
Challenge
Making services more citizen-centric
The citizen services provided by the State of Tennessee Department of Human Services (TDHS) were fragmented, and citizens had to visit a different website to access each individual service. TDHS wanted to give its citizens faster access to its services from one place and make them more comprehensive. It also decided to make new engagement channels available for citizens—including virtual, online, and remote services.
At the same time, Federal oversight agencies who fund State social service programs were encouraging states to simplify and modernize their legacy monolithic architectures and adopt more modular approaches. The State of Tennessee was one of the first to respond. TDHS needed a digital platform that could provide an integrated health picture for each of Tennessee’s citizens while enabling digital channels and a more modular approach. Their objective was to better coordinate services and distribute public resources such as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance (SNAP) and Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) more efficiently—a capability vital during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Solution
A scalable platform built on cloud-native technologies
Working with KPMG, TDHS adopted a modern enterprise architecture, including a shared services layer comprising integration, core, and utility services. TDHS’s siloed legacy programs would be able to reuse these services to support their digital engagement with citizens. KPMG and TDHS selected Red Hat technologies because of their hybrid cloud portability and innovative capabilities and because they eliminate proprietary lock-in.
KPMG built the KRIS Connected Platform (KRIS), a centralized SaaS-based integration, shared services, and data platform powered by Red Hat technologies. Red Hat OpenShift provides hybrid cloud portability, on-demand scalability, performance, reliability, and the high levels of security vital when managing sensitive and personal information. It enables a cloud-native approach using microservices, containers, and a modern DevSecOps approach to build and deploy cloud-native applications at speed. KPMG also adopted a container-first approach leveraging OpenShift as the basis to package and deploy all the components of the KRIS software stack. This includes 3rd party software including Informatica, ForgeRock, GoAnywhere, and Edifecs.
Today, the KRIS Connected Platform underpins TDHS services that support more than two million Tennesseans and more than 3.600 TDHS employees. With technologies such as Red Hat OpenShift and Red Hat Integration at the platform’s core, TDHS has been able to evolve its digital services faster and make them more accessible and more comprehensive for its residents. TDHS recently launched a set of comprehensive portals to consolidate the engagement for human services providers and their residents, including internal staff. Using the KRIS Connected Platform, the Department was able to accelerate the delivery of services to clients and providers through these portals, and create a future-ready environment as new services are delivered.
Red Hat Integration provides ubiquitous connectivity across legacy and modern systems, scalable integration, and API elasticity. This allowed KMPG to use the KRIS Platform to connect and integrate both newly built, migrated, legacy, and cloud-based SaaS systems in a seamless manner.
KPMG and Red Hat collaborate to streamline government services
Red Hat and KPMG are working together to create solutions that use a mix of Red Hat technology to create scalable solutions for connecting disparate systems to meet the needs of their customers. Learn more about how the KRIS solution is growing this partnership.
Business outcome
Expanding the platform
When KPMG evaluated the leading cloud vendors for a partner with hybrid cloud interoperability, Red Hat stood out. Red Hat’s commitment to being customer-first matched well with KPMG’s values. Together, the two companies are using Red Hat technologies to deliver results that matter for their customers. The combination of domain experience, IT consultancy, and services from KPMG, coupled with the technical experience from Red Hat, resulted in the implementation of a secure, modern, and scalable shared service platform based on open-source components.
The KRIS Connected Platform has wide applicability to other government agencies and commercial industries. It is currently being implemented for Medicaid modernization in North Carolina and New Mexico. More than 15 additional states are also exploring its benefits for Human and Health Services, and it is being extended to other domains including transportation, financial services, and commercial healthcare. The MLops capabilities in OpenShift will be critical as KRIS is expanded to include data analytics and machine learning models. OpenShift allows KRIS to scale up or down as needed to meet the unique requirements of different organizations and domains.
The future is integrating data, building shared services across everything, and that’s what KRIS does. Red Hat gives us that ability to scale up and scale down to meet the size of any organization
Related resources
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