The challenge

The CMS Information Security and Privacy Group (ISPG) is in charge of the policies and programs that ensure the security and privacy of data that is handled by CMS information systems. ISPG staff and contractors work to maintain policies, distribute guidance, communicate with customers, support security programs, and promote new initiatives.

While doing this important work over the years, they amassed a large collection of documents and resources that were spread across various locations and formats. This led to issues with version control and made it hard for people to find the information needed to do their security-related tasks.

Without a single, trusted location for cybersecurity information – and with many of the documents being in static PDFs that were full of jargon and hard to understand – finding essential information from ISPG could be onerous, negatively impacting CMS’ overall security posture.

Client goal

To improve their customer service and promote better security across CMS systems, ISPG engaged our team to develop a user-friendly website (informally known as “CyberGeek”) at security.cms.gov that is recognized as the authoritative home for CMS security and privacy information. With this project, ISPG aims to:

• Improve customer service through modern information delivery
• Support CMS security personnel with the resources needed for their critical work
• Make security topics and policies more approachable and human-centered
• Build user-friendly processes to help ISPG staff maintain their content
• Establish a platform where customers can find news and updates from ISPG

Our Approach

Together with our partner Affix Digital, we worked closely with ISPG stakeholders and customers to understand the cybersecurity ecosystem at CMS. We built relationships across ISPG and partnered with their leadership and program teams to streamline their content into a single, trusted platform that makes cybersecurity information approachable and human-centered.

First, listen and learn

We started by interviewing ISPG customers to make sure we built the site’s information architecture in a way that made sense to the people using it. Card sorting – a process that involves users in the design of the site navigation – helped solidify the menus and categories that would be the foundation of a user’s journey through the site.

Open source and accessible

We built a decoupled site using Drupal and React to give the client flexibility for technology changes in the future. Utilizing the U.S. Web Design System (USWDS), we created a component library that ensures the site meets government requirements for things like accessibility and mobile responsiveness. We used Storybook to build components in isolation before deployment to the site, catching errors in real-time so they could be fixed on the spot.

Search at the core

One of the main problems ISPG wanted to solve for their customers was the headache of searching for security documents, templates, and program information – which had been difficult to find in various internal repositories. We implemented a powerful search feature using Algolia, with filter options to help people find information specific to their needs. Improvements to search are ongoing as we learn more about how people use it.

The challenge

The Georgia Board of Health Care Workforce (GBHCW) serves communities in the state with a focus on medically underserved areas. The agency provides data reports on the physician, physician assistant, and nurse workforce and funds loan repayment programs to recruit healthcare workers to underserved parts of the state. However, healthcare workforce planners were having trouble estimating and meeting demand for practitioners across counties --especially as the COVID-19 pandemic drew many of them out of Georgia and into various hotspot states. Additionally, without publicly-available data on healthcare workers, GBHCW struggled to inform medical facilities with potential funding and staffing needs."

The agency saw an opportunity to leverage the DKAN open data platform where they were already hosting their data, combined with custom data services from our team. We worked with GBHCW to create data visualizations and tools that make it easy for staff, medical practitioners, and the public to access the information needed to build a resilient and responsive state healthcare workforce.

Client goal

We were tasked with crafting detailed, easy-to-read visualizations for data provided by the Georgia Composite Medical Board and the Georgia Board of Nursing. We also built robust, multifunctional dashboards that allow data to be searched across physicians, physician assistants, and nurses. The dashboards needed to:

• Host and display data resources with user needs in mind
• Show the number of licensed healthcare practitioners in a given area
• Display data in a clear, user-friendly, and accessible way
• Be easily adaptable and sustainable with the constant influx of new data
• Reflect diverse intersections within the data (gender, race, qualifications, etc.)
• Help legislators make data-based decisions to improve the healthcare field

Our approach

Because other state agencies were already using the open source Drupal framework to publish and manage government content, GBHCW chose the Drupal-based open data platform DKAN for their data dashboards. The agency also saved time and money by utilizing an existing contract with us, adding new digital products to pre-built infrastructure.

As the core maintainers of DKAN, we provided research-based recommendations and custom data design and development services to make sure the dashboards solved the right problems for agency staff and stakeholders. The project was so successful that the client reached out to us with the intent to create more dashboards to display patient care and underserved areas data.

Build for real user needs

We brought a human-centered approach to the data dashboards, and used the React.js library to build intuitive visualizations. We listened carefully to the desired outcomes, researched user needs, then made suggestions for how people could best learn about the demographic makeup and overall distribution of physicians, physician assistants, and nurses throughout the state.

Deliver early and often

For the redesign of the data dashboards, we used agile sprint cycles with daily stand-up meetings to develop and implement small chunks of working software quickly. We used test data provided by GBHCW to create proofs-of-concept, with graphs and charts that made sense of the various elements we knew the client wanted to showcase.

Align and adapt

Meeting regularly with project leaders at the agency ensured that the vision and work remained in alignment. Together we reviewed work that had been done, checked if adjustments were needed, and responded quickly to evolving requests or new data. Staying in close communication ensured there were no surprises and the client goals were met.