Yet social services leaders are under growing pressure to deliver both human outcomes and financial stewardship at scale. Backlogs, fragmented records, and manual evidence reviews strain frontline staff, while delayed verification and siloed data expose programs to error and misuse. The challenge is no longer choosing between inclusion and integrity. Modern eligibility systems must deliver both. 

Why does this matter now? 

The financial implications are significant. Around the world, governments are confronting the cost of improper payments, fraud, and administrative inefficiencies: 

• In the United States, the Government Accountability Office reports that 16 federal agencies estimated about $162 billion in improper payments in FY2024, with roughly 84% due to overpayments.¹ 
• In the United Kingdom, public sector analyses estimate £33 Billion to £59 billion annually in fraud and error.² 
• In Australia, the Australian National Audit Office reports that in 2021–2022, Services Australia delivered $124.7 billion in welfare payments, with an estimated 6.71% in overpayments.³ 
• In India, a government press note summarizing a quantitative assessment highlights ₹3.48 lakh crore in cumulative savings attributed to leakage reduction enabled by the country’s Direct Benefit Transfer program.⁴ 

At the same time, large-scale digital identity and cash transfer reforms around the world demonstrate  what’s possible when delivery systems modernize. These transformations show that improving both inclusion and fiscal stewardship is not only possible—it’s already underway. Modernizing eligibility is no longer just an IT upgrade. It is a service delivery transformation, a fiscal stewardship strategy, and a trust- building effort between governments and the people they serve.

Microsoft’s point of view 

Microsoft’s point of view is simple: modern eligibility is not about replacing human judgment with automation. It is about augmenting frontline staff with secure, interoperable, AI-enabled tools that fit into the systems governments already rely on. 

That’s why our approach emphasizes identity as infrastructure, evidence as data, and AI with humans in the loop—so agencies can modernize incrementally, maintain accountability, and adapt as policies evolve. 

What changes when eligibility is designed around real lives? 

When eligibility systems are designed around programs rather than people, friction is inevitable. Households move across life events faster than policies or systems can adapt, forcing staff to reconcile fragmented records, incomplete documentation, and outdated rules. 

Leading agencies are addressing this by treating eligibility not as a one-time decision, but as a continuous, connected process—grounded in strong identity, structured evidence, and shared data across programs. 

What modern eligibility looks like

Modernization is not a monolithic system replacement. It is a set of incremental, coordinated capabilities that governments can adopt without wholesale replacement.

Below are the core capabilities that define modern eligibility today. 

Identity as eligibility infrastructure 

Eligibility starts with a foundational question: Who is applying, and is it really them? 

Identity theft doesn’t just divert public funds—it can lock legitimate residents out of help. Treating identity as a side project is increasingly a risk. 

In South Australia, the Department of Human Services uses Microsoft Entra ID to strengthen identity protection through role-based access controls, multifactor authentication, and print and screen access safeguards. These steps help protect sensitive records and support secure self-service—without adding friction for legitimate users. 

Turning documents into usable data 

Documents are often the hidden tax on benefit delivery. Much of the delay in eligibility processing comes not from policy rules but from handling paperwork—reading scans, re-entering information, or chasing missing pages. 

The Czech Republic’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs addressed this by using Azure AI Document Intelligence to extract data from paper forms and accelerate payment of childcare allowances. The Jenda portal also gives families visibility into application status and connects them to upskilling opportunities—illustrating how digitizing evidence can improve both speed and experience. 

Connecting fragmented records to see the full picture 

A resident may interact with multiple programs, often across separate systems. Fragmented data can lead to duplication, inconsistent decisions, or missed support. 

Singapore’s Central Provident Fund Board modernized its data management approach with Azure Databricks to serve more than four million people with a more holistic view—a strong example of how connected data improves outcomes while reinforcing integrity. 

Aligning eligibility with life events

Eligibility is not static. Circumstances change: employment shifts, caregiving arrangements evolve, households expand or contract. 

Modern systems use AI, responsibly and with humans in the loop, to: 

• Collect and structure evidence 
• Surface relevant context 
• Reduce administrative effort 
• Route complex cases to specialists 

The Washington, DC Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) built an AI-powered platform that saves 45 minutes per intake and expects even greater time savings for investigations, while enabling new features to be deployed faster and at lower cost. 

All AI capabilities described here align with Microsoft responsible AI principles and maintain human accountability throughout the process. 

Detecting anomalies earlier to protect funds

Fraud and error often exploit timing: delayed verification, siloed data, or missing crosschecks. 

European public sector fraud authorities are increasingly looking to augment AI‑powered analytics platforms with broader datasets, such as sanctioned entities and dormant companies, to strengthen early detection capabilities and help investigators surface potential risks sooner.

A practical path forward for social services and government leaders

Many eligibility modernization efforts stall because they focus on a single dimension—speed, cost reduction, or compliance—at the expense of the others. Microsoft’s approach is designed to advance service delivery, integrity, and trust together, using platforms that governments already operate and govern. That balance is what allows modernization to endure beyond a single program or funding cycle. 

Whether a program is just beginning modernization or aiming to scale next-generation capabilities, leaders can start with achievable, high-value steps: 

• Start where friction is highest: Identify the program with the heaviest documentation burden or the largest backlog. Early wins build momentum and trust. 
• Treat identity as foundational: A strong identity layer protects against impersonation and enables secure self-service for residents and staff. 
• Digitize the evidence pipeline: Use document intelligence to convert evidence into structured data so staff can focus on exceptions—not re-keying information. 
• Connect data to reduce duplication and missed support: A holistic view—especially at the household level—helps ensure decisions reflect real circumstances and prevents duplicative benefits. 
• Embed continuous integrity: Use signals, analytics, and network insights to focus oversight where risk is highest without creating barriers for eligible residents. 
• Measure what matters: Track speed, accuracy, integrity, and resident experience together. Modernization that improves only one dimension rarely endures. 

This is where Microsoft differentiates—enabling agencies to modernize eligibility without sacrificing accountability, trust, or program continuity.

A more trusted, human-centered future for benefits 

For social services leaders, the next step isn’t a wholesale system replacement. It’s identifying where eligibility friction is highest—and where stronger identity, smarter evidence handling, or connected data could immediately improve outcomes for residents and staff. 

Learn how agencies are applying these capabilities today and explore where modernization can start in your own programs.

Are you attending HIMSS Global Health Conference and Exhibition in March this year? Make sure to check out the Microsoft sessions and expo booth.

¹US Government Accountability Office

²Global Government Finance

³Australian National Audit Office

⁴Government of India Press Information Bureau

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Governments do remarkable work to help people live with dignity and endure difficult circumstances by providing essential benefits and resources across a broad spectrum of programs. Yet the challenge of providing the right benefits at the right time to all qualified recipients while also minimizing the incidence of improper payments is a balancing act that many governments struggle to achieve. 

Helping agencies and organizations to address these types of challenges is central to our work in Microsoft for Government. We focus on enabling thriving communities and inclusive programs through technology. In the case of benefits protection, we work to help each government discover the right mix of technological and organizational innovation to mitigate risk within the parameters of their unique circumstances and requirements. 

Microsoft for Government

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The rising tide of improper payments

The loss of benefits funds to unauthorized payments has long been a problem for governments around the world. In recent years, the scale and complexity of the challenge has escalated. Fraud is a particularly expensive and multidimensional problem. To offer just one example, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimated that the amount of fraud in US unemployment insurance programs during the COVID-19 pandemic was likely between $100 billion and $135 billion USD.¹

The reasons for this are varied, and they parallel larger trends in society. A key driver is the ready availability of AI tools, which fraudsters have enthusiastically embraced to automate, scale, and generally uplevel the impact of their efforts. But it’s not always a matter of criminal intent. So-called “unintentional errors”—mistakes made without maliciousness due to things like administrative errors or poorly designed solutions—also incur huge costs. According to the GAO, overpayments or payments that should not have been made (for example, to deceased people or those no longer eligible for government programs) totaled an estimated $247 billion during fiscal year 2022.²

Why governments struggle to ensure proper payments 

Unlike organizations in other global industry sectors, governments face unique challenges in administering complicated social benefits programs. The nature of distributing funds accurately and efficiently to constituents in all corners of society is inherently fraught. Governments must contend with a set of vexing factors, including: 

• Growing demand for benefits funding—A mix of aging populations, increases in immigrant and refugee populations, and people seeking broader ranges of benefits is driving higher budgets and greater complexity. 
• Mandates to “do more with less”—Austerity programs and budget cuts are colliding with rising public expectations for modern services and impacting the ability of security teams to procure top cybersecurity talent.  
• Disconnected data silos—Across departments and agencies, teams often work with older tools and isolated systems that cannot share data easily or securely, making integrated new “tell us once” solutions difficult to implement. 
• Ineffective legacy systems—A high “technical debt” of outdated computing environments and applications impedes innovation and threatens to hinder the most vulnerable people from accessing payments they’re entitled to.  

Beyond these costs and considerations, the larger risk here is the erosion of public trust. Especially in social benefits systems, which exist to ensure the welfare of people across all walks of life, government is obligated to demonstrate reliability and integrity. Widespread fraud and abuse do more than increase deficits and siphon off critical resources. They also undermine confidence in all aspects of government.  

A vision for modern benefits delivery and protection 

Imagine if governments were able to innovate on par with private industry. Imagine if people could easily access all the information they need through any channel (online, over phone, text, and more) and have their own virtual assistant to help them apply for benefits using natural, everyday language. Imagine if these systems would inherently enforce rules and keep up with constituents’ changing lives. Imagine if customer service representatives had access to a complete, 360-degree view of the constituent—if it knew their history and all their previous contacts with every social service agency. And imagine that such things could be accomplished without breaking the budget.  

These are obviously lofty, aspirational visions. However, thanks to the relatively recent technological advancements, some innovative government social service organizations are doing just that. The advent of generative AI and the innovation it has inspired has already delivered promising results on many fronts of government operations, including benefits. To cite just one example, a generative AI-powered chatbot developed in India called Jugalbandi is helping people get assistance for any of 171 government programs, simply by conversing through mobile devices in 10 of India’s 22 official languages. “This is revolutionary for people who could not interact with tech because of language barriers,” said Abhigyan Raman, a project officer. 

Ensuring the integrity of benefits payments means reevaluating a government’s existing slate of technology investments and charting a multistep course of transformation. Embracing AI is a common theme, but the destination in terms of functional outcomes and benefits will be unique to the organization.  

Three areas of generative AI impact in benefit payments protection

In our work with customers who are either early in the journey or simply just embarking, we identify three categories of solutions that hold the greatest promise for cloud and AI innovation:

1. Boost workforce productivity. Governments can potentially save time and money using generative AI for scenarios such as live transcriptions and translations during benefit eligibility interviews. AI can also draw insights more easily from large volumes of data. One department, for example, identified GBP14 million in potentially fraudulent loans by analyzing a set of 250 networks of people, organizations, and places, processing 100 million data items.

2. Embrace “Prevention by Design.” AI can integrate controls into systems to detect fraudulent or erroneous activities and enable real-time profiling and alerts. For example, a leading bank is using Voice ID analysis for incoming phone calls from 31 countries and 15 languages, checking more than 100 behavioral and physical vocal traits in a matter of seconds. Since launch, it has flagged more than 43,000 fraudulent calls and reduced fraud by 50%, preventing an estimated GBP981 million in losses.

3. Enhance citizen engagement. When chatbots become knowledgeable assistants, when a person’s voice becomes their password, when the disabled have equal access to resources, then everyone will benefit. For example, a government department is developing an Intelligent Website AI Assistant to help taxpayers more easily process their tax returns. It uses natural, everyday language to address queries and disseminate timely and consistent information. This will help improve compliance and avoid revenue leakages from fraudulent activities.

Beyond technology: How Microsoft partners for the long term 

Embracing the paradigm shift of generative AI obviously begins with technology. The table stakes of modernization for government include migrating to a modern cloud platform and the adoption of a comprehensive AI development solution from a vendor who demonstrates a deep commitment to security and responsible AI practices. 

Microsoft invests heavily in all these areas. However, success involves much more than just technology. Governments also depend heavily on the contributions of trusted solution providers, and we believe our global partner ecosystem sets us apart, with expertise in all corners of the world. Then, the final unique benefit we offer is the deep experience of our industry advisors and the many highly experienced government veterans on the Microsoft Government team. 

Our job is to help build the bridge between the technical and the strategic, on realistic terms. When we sit down with customers, we help clarify challenges and goals, educate on important challenges (for example, how governments can tackle cybersecurity and AI skilling), and share our experiences with other governments facing similar challenges (sometimes even connecting them to help foster learning). Then, we embark on identifying and exploring use cases, evaluating impact, and taking the knowledge gained for further innovation.  

We are excited to work with governments to mitigate fraud and abuse in payments. To learn more about how Microsoft is helping to create opportunities that support vulnerable communities, see our Microsoft public health and social services website, and learn more about Microsoft for Government. 

¹Estimated Amount of Fraud during Pandemic Likely Between $100 Billion and $135 Billion, GAO. September 2023.

²Federal Payment Errors, Known As Improper Payments, Are A Continuing Concern, GAO. March 29, 2023.

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Health and vaccine inequities

The pandemic has exposed long-standing inequalities in healthcare and created a stark contrast between the haves and have-nots. At the country-level, developing countries still do not have enough COVID-19 vaccine to cover the majority of its population. Within developed countries and specifically in underserved communities, vaccine hesitancy remains high and COVID-19 vaccination rates remain low. While several factors contribute to vaccine hesitancy, such as awareness and education, perhaps one of the more difficult ones to overcome is the deep and long-standing distrust of government, public health, and the scientific community that many in underserved areas share.

Vaccination equity initiative

Microsoft and its partners have implemented technology platforms globally to enable the scheduling, registration, and data management for COVID-19 vaccinations and have observed first-hand that community-led, public-private partnerships can be effective in addressing vaccine hesitancy and in improving vaccination rates in underserved areas.^1-3  In an effort to share what we have learned, we launched the Vaccination Equity Initiative (VEI) in February 2021. Leveraging the momentum of providing COVID-19 vaccines, VEI has been initially focused on COVID-19 vaccinations while also expanding to other critical vaccines/conditions to improve overall health and build more resilient communities.

The objective now is to deploy a similar approach across the nation and world. To do this, a coalition of non-profits (e.g. Easterseals, American Heart Association, California Health Medical Reserve Corp [CH MRC]), healthcare organizations, technology enablers (e.g. Microsoft, Accenture) and other key stakeholders are collaborating with local public health, community-faith-based organizations, and other groups to implement these strategies, share their “best practices,” distribute their operations playbook, and provide services and technologies as needed to deploy pop-up vaccination sites in underserved areas.

The goal is to deliver vaccinations and essential health services to underserved, vulnerable, low access to care populations. For additional information about the Vaccination Equity Initiative, please contact VEI@Microsoft.com.

The following blog describes (1) when VEI is most relevant, (2) the simple steps needed to apply VEI, (3) results we’ve seen, and (4) how organizations can learn more about VEI.

Major phases of vaccination deployment

As the pandemic has progressed and vaccination rates have increased, we have observed four (4) phases of vaccination deployment.

• Phase 1. Prioritization, volume, and speed. In this phase, vaccinations were provided by appointment only to eligible healthcare providers and high-risk individuals at mass vaccination sites, hospitals, and retail clinics. The goal was to enable vaccinations for as many persons as possible, as quickly as possible, and in a prioritized manner. Phase 1 also included a nationally coordinated program to vaccinate nursing home residents and staff.
• Phase 2. Accessibility and convenience. This second phase, which commenced sometime during Phase 1, focused on making vaccinations more accessible for the vulnerable and underserved populations. This involved setting up pop-up clinics and deploying mobile vaccination vans and buses in parking lots, schools, churches, parks, and other convenient neighborhood locations. Walk-in appointments were permitted.
• Phase 3. Hesitancy. The third phase involves addressing vaccine hesitancy. Hesitancy is often a result of concerns or fears that individuals may have regarding the vaccine, its potential side effects, and/or how the vaccine was developed. Disinformation, mistrust of the government, and concerns over infringement of civil liberties can also lead to vaccine hesitancy.
• Phase 4. Return to work, school, travel, and events. The pandemic has taken a serious toll on our physical and mental health, economy, education, work life, and personal life. Our ability to restore these essential elements of personal, work, and community life requires that we diminish the amount of virus circulating in the community and enhance our ability to defend against the virus, both physically (e.g., through masks, social distancing, air circulation,) and immunologically (e.g., through vaccinations). As we look forward to a safer return to work, school, and travel, the following strategies help us mitigate risk and provide reassurance:
  • Self-attestation: to acknowledge that one does not have symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or recent exposure to individuals infected with COVID-19
  • Testing: to demonstrate a negative COVID-19 test result
  • Masking: to prevent the spread of infection
  • Verifiable credentials: to show verifiable documentation of COVID-19 vaccination and/or a negative test result
  • Booster shots: booster shots can help address the emergence and rapid spread of the more elusive and lethal variants by enhancing one’s immunologic response to the variants. Booster shots are particularly important for individuals with immunosuppression, chronic conditions, and advanced age.

Collectively, our goal is to advance as quickly as possible to Phase 4. However, it is difficult, if not impossible, to enable a safer return to work, school, and travel without adequately addressing Phase 3, vaccine hesitancy. The good news is that we now have a much better understanding of how to overcome vaccine hesitancy.

Vaccine hesitancy

In working with local community leaders, we have learned that vaccine hesitancy, specifically in underserved communities, can be addressed when local communities follow these fundamental steps:

• Community Engagement. These initiatives require input, guidance, and active support and engagement from local community leaders and nonprofits who understand the culture, challenges, and best ways to engage members of the community. Other key stakeholders include county +/- state public health agencies and local healthcare providers. Technology enablers can support these efforts through pop-up vaccination management systems for those without Electronic Health Record Systems (EHRs) and ensure that clinical data flows seamlessly and securely between such systems and state immunization registries.
• Family Events. Many individuals who are vaccine hesitant will not attend a COVID-related vaccination event. However, they will attend a community fair, celebration of a holiday, or an event to help bring the kids back to school. The goal is to combine a high interest community based non-COVID-19 focused event (preferably one that is already being planned) with a health fair that includes COVID-19 vaccinations and much more. The event needs to be open to the entire family and ideally should offer fun and entertaining activities for kids.
• Unpressured Conversations. Conversations with those who are hesitant should be unpressured and delivered by individuals who have a long-standing trusted relationship with the community and/or have a healthcare background that allows them to address the specific COVID-19 questions and concerns.
• Volunteers. Key activities that volunteers can assist with include:
  • Parking, crowd, and line management
  • Translation services
  • Registration and scheduling
  • Monitoring post-vaccination
  • One of the more important roles for the guide is to physically walk interested persons to the vaccination areas
• Vaccination and other essential health services. Consider offering the following health services at the event:
  • COVID-19 vaccination and testing
  • School immunizations, vision, hearing, physicals
  • Adult immunizations
  • Cancer screenings
  • Other screenings (e.g., hypertension, diabetes, prenatal, high-risk sexual [including testing for sexually transmitted diseases], substance abuse, violence)
  • Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) programs (e.g., health insurance. food insecurity, transportation, housing, job, childcare, health education, skills training)
• Address registration barriers. Key challenges may include:
  • Language barriers, literacy, and health literacy
  • Concerns about deportation
  • Concerns about cost
  • Lack of health insurance
  • Lack of a healthcare provider
  • No computer access
  • No cell phone access
• Follow-up. It would be helpful for a volunteer to contact high-risk individuals (e.g., homeless, elders living alone, individuals struggling with mental health issues or substance abuse) to ensure that they are able to attend the follow-up appointment(s). Volunteers should be empowered with resources to address communication, transportation, and/or scheduling issues.

Results

These best practices have been applied with great success in Washington, California, Georgia, and other parts of the country.

In the Seattle area, vaccination efforts coordinated by Microsoft, EvergreenHealth, Overlake Medical Center & Clinics, and Public Health – Seattle and King County have delivered to-date over 170,000 vaccinations. Fifty-three percent of doses have been provided to at-risk Black, Indigenous, and People of communities of color.

On May 2, 2021, the VEI King County partnership hosted a pop-up event with Centro Cultural Mexicano featuring Spanish speakers at every corner, cultural works on display, and mariachi music filling the air. Thanks to these efforts, several hundred community members found the access and encouragement they needed to take the first step in the process. Those vaccinated at the event were 98 percent Latino, from 68 zip codes, and 30 cities.

Another key metric for success has been vaccine hesitancy and the percentage of people returning for their second visit. In Central California, where many migrant farm workers reside, vaccination rates have been close to 20 percent. Working in close collaboration with local public health, healthcare, community-based organizations, and local businesses, the California Health Medical Reserve Corps (CH MRC), local public health, community health centers, and Microsoft have hosted several VEI events. We have observed over a 90 percent return rate for the second shot, with a significant increase in the number of people attending the second event as compared to the first event. Many of the first-shot recipients brought their entire families, friends, and neighbors to participate in the second event.

In August and September of 2021, Easterseals, American Heart Association, Emory Health, Accenture, and Microsoft worked in close collaboration with local public health and community leaders who hosted two events that combined “Return to School and Literacy” days with health fair events in Clarkston, GA,. Clarkston is known for its ethnic diversity and has a large refugee population. The events offered activities for the kids and families and provided a variety of health services including COVID-19 shots, childhood immunizations, school physicals, vision tests, and blood pressure screening. Approximately 400 people attended the August event, with 1/3 of them receiving the COVID-19 vaccine. The September event had lower attendance than expected due to the rapid rise in the Delta variant, with many in the community fearing bringing children to large in-person events. 150 families attended where historically this event has 3 – 4 times this attendance. As a result, vaccination rates were lower than the August event however an unexpected ancillary benefit was that the nice weather allowed the children to interact and play with each other—a positive mental health opportunity for children who have been predominantly isolated since the beginning of the pandemic. In addition to adult/vaccine, children services provided a physical exam including screening for height, weight, BMI plus vision and hearing; a significant value-add to this community in addition to the vaccination services provided.

Key success factors have included:

• Focusing on areas with the highest risk and most impacted individuals.
• Working closely with local communities to plan and coordinate events.
• Making registration easy.
• Hosting events during off-hours and weekends at convenient locations.
• Addressing transportation and mobility needs.
• Providing vaccinations regardless of immigration status.

In closing, I’d like to share a few remarks from our VEI Coalition members on why continued work to address vaccine equity is so important and how their organizations’ are contributing to the effort:

“For the health of us all, it’s vital that we address vaccination hesitancy with compassion rather than disdain. We can present the science through trusted medical experts and meet people where they are in their understanding of virology. Vaccine hesitancy doesn’t just come from misinformation, but from historical and current traumas as well – an important consideration as we reach out to communities of color. Beyond hesitancy, we must continue finding ways people with disabilities and the aging community can access vaccines safely, whether it’s receiving the shots at home, or finding transportation to a vaccine center. Easterseals is committed to looking at the whole picture when reaching out to communities, ensuring as many individuals as possible can receive these vaccines.” —Angela Williams, President and CEO of Easterseals.

“As champions for health equity, the American Heart Association recognizes the importance of efforts in the community that bridge gaps between healthcare and the people who need it. Here in Atlanta, we’ve worked tirelessly for decades to improve the health of our residents, and we value this collaboration of like-minded organizations to equitably improve rates of COVID-19 vaccination.“ —Carla Smith, Vice President of Health Strategies for the American Heart Association in Atlanta.

This pandemic has spotlighted the health inequalities that many communities experience every day. Critical components in the system did not have the capacity or the tools to ensure accurate and real time data exchange which slowed down the efforts to get vaccinations to the communities that needed it the most. The work that we are doing to bridge these gaps is rooted in the community-first approach with a lens of equity and inclusion. It is imperative that we engage with the trusted voices within the community to help guide our efforts, which will help address hesitancy as well as get more people vaccinated. Our focus is to have the greatest local impact through data sharing, collaboration and ensuring equity.” —Dr. Greg Buchert, Chief Medical Officer, CHMRC.

References:

1. Helping communities accelerate COVID-19 vaccinations at the last mile – Microsoft Industry Blogs
2. Secure, safe, and equitable vaccine distribution – Microsoft Industry Blogs
3. A Global Focus on Health Equity – HLTH

Learn more about Microsoft for Public Health and Social Services and how the use of technology helps to create opportunities for safety, wellness, and prosperity.

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In the healthcare industry, in particular, partners have taken up–at very fast pace–an innovative and leadership role developing solutions that demonstrate a constant pursuit of customer success. These solutions transform the delivery of care, making it future-proof and ready for a mobile-first and cloud-first world. From cloud and mobility solutions that save care workers time to apps that improve patient engagement and enhance multi-disciplinary collaboration, our partners are literally reinventing healthcare bolstered by Microsoft productivity and the cloud platform at its core.

One such company is Winvision, the 2014 Microsoft Healthcare Partner of the Year. A software developer and systems integrator based in Utrecht, Netherlands, Winvision recently launched WinCare, a cloud enabled and mobile solution that promises to transform the delivery of youth care across municipalities.

Faced with escalating healthcare costs, starting in 2015 the Dutch government will decentralize youth, elderly, and family services, transferring these responsibilities to more than 400 municipalities throughout the country. At the same time, the government is cutting the budget for these services by 15–20 percent. This presents a potentially huge challenge for municipalities throughout the Netherlands. Yet thanks to WinCare, municipalities now have the tools they need to make the transition without compromising the quality of care while at the same time enhancing the level of engagement with patients and their families.

Based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online and Microsoft Office 365, WinCare is a cloud-first, mobile-first solution that gives caregivers a central place to manage social services information, while offering families round-the-clock access to their treatment programs.

In the past, youth, elderly, and family workers managed files on paper, which was both inefficient and time-consuming. With multiple caregivers often working with the same family, there were multiple files with duplicate information. The files were sometimes outdated, and caregivers didn’t always have access to relevant information.

WinCare addresses these problems by bringing all of a family’s information into one file—regardless of how many caregivers the family works with. “The central theme of WinCare is, ‘One family, one file,’” says Marcel Lucker, co-owner of Winvision. “We’re combining information about all the services a family receives into one file with the most up-to-date information.”

Building its solution on top of Microsoft technology, Winvision was able to develop WinCare in about one-fifth of the time that it would have taken from scratch, quickly stepping up to meet a critical need.

It is an outstanding example of technology and process innovation geared to the goal of bringing to market seamless solutions that empower healthier citizens and cities. Among the benefits of WinCare are:

• Improved productivity: In the past, caregivers visited families, took notes on paper, and entered the information into their systems when they returned to the office. With WinCare, they can now enter this information right at the kitchen table using Windows 8 tablets, increasing productivity by 30 percent.
• Better quality care: Families are put at the center. They can better manage their treatment plans by accessing their information 24/7 via a centralized portal they can use to view upcoming appointments, hold conversations with caregivers via Skype, add information about their treatment programs, and watch informational videos—anytime, anywhere.
• Reduced costs: Because WinCare is based in the cloud, municipalities don’t have to purchase their own servers or manage their own infrastructure. They simply pay a monthly subscription, and they can seamlessly scale up and down as they add and remove families from the system.

Thanks to partners like Winvision, the health industry is increasingly achieving far more with less. Thanks to solutions like Wincare, cities are providing superior solutions and keeping their citizens healthier. A big thank you to Winvision and to all of our mobile and cloud-ready health partners! We are inspired by the power of your partnership.

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