Texas Health and Human Services Commission Empowers Their Mission

San Antonio, Texas. – The state of Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) oversees several state departments that deal with health and human services, including itself and the Texas Department of Aging and Disability Services, Texas Department of State Health Services, and the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

In 2012, Texas HHSC began a mission for providing more self-service options to their customers by setting up workstations in the lobbies of their offices across the state. These customer-facing workstations, now referred to as the “Lobby Kiosks”, allow Texas citizens to easily apply for state benefits, monitor the status of their applications, get information about assistance programs and shop for health insurance — all in one place.

The project was a great success, but as it expanded to upwards of 800 kiosks throughout the state, the number of resources needed to support and maintain these systems was beyond their budget. Texas HHSC wanted to continue to extend the capacity of its self-service program, but desperately needed a way to reduce the burden on already overloaded resources.

In June 2017, TX HHSC found the solution to their challenge with the TIPS Kiosk Management Software suite, developed by DynaTouch, which is an enterprise level software solution that helps authorized administrators remotely manage, monitor and maintain geographically diverse kiosk devices through a web portal that resides on their own server. The TIPS Client component is installed on each system, locking it down to ensure secure, controlled access to the Internet, while also collecting comprehensive information about each kiosk. HHSC administrative staff can then login to the TIPS Server Kiosk Administration Portal to view a snapshot of all machines at a glance, manage the display content on all devices, and monitor their health and operation through real-time performance reports and alerts. With the powerful reporting engine included with TIPS Server, HHSC is also able to run on-demand reports to identify usage trends, study kiosk activity, and compare individual kiosks and kiosk groups to help identify successful locations and system metric benchmarks. These tools are now helping HHSC to significantly reduce the time required to update and manage their growing network of Lobby Kiosks.

DynaTouch CEO Terri McClelland said,”We were told that, with our solution deployed, one FTE can now do what eight FTEs used to do to support the Lobby Kiosks. It’s always a good feeling when we can supply a cost-saving solution to the government. Everyone wins.”