Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) User Group Meeting– July 2014Hosted by United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)-Food and Nutrition Services (FNS)

Caroline Jackson Crossroads Project Manager

North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Division of Public Health

Crossroads

Four states with diverse requirements applied to be a State Agency Model (SAM) Project ◦ Two EBT states◦ Two Food Instrument (FI) states

Virginia (EBT), Mid-Atlantic FNS Regional Office West Virginia (EBT), Mid-Atlantic FNS Regional

Office North Carolina (FI), Southeast FNS Regional

Office Alabama (FI), Southeast FNS Regional Office

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Brief Crossroads History

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Jim FinleyUAT Director

USDA FNS Headquarter

s

USDA FNS State

Systems

USDA FNS Mid-Atlantic

Regional Office

USDA Southeast Regional

Office

Caroline JacksonCrossroads Project Manager

Crossroads Executive Steering Committee

State WIC Director and one Designee

CSCCrossroads Design,

Development &Implementation

Vendor

MAXIMUSCrossroads Quality Assurance Vendor

FIS/CDPWV EBT Vendor

XEROXVA EBT Vendor

Barbara SwartzProject

Management Assistant

Leah AspellProject

Management Assistant

Crossroads Organization

Family Centric◦ Aggregated Benefits◦ Family Appointments◦ Family Issuance

Benefit Issuance (FI or EBT) Highly Customizable and Configurable (for

example):◦ Flexible Scheduling Component◦ Proof of Pregnancy

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High Level System Features

Highly Customizable and Configurable (for example continued):◦ Presumptive Eligibility for Pregnant Women◦ Length of Certification for Children◦ Head Circumference◦ Social Security Number Visible◦ Allows for a Indian Tribal Organization to utilize

the system under a State Agency Participant and Vendor Portals Disconnected Solution

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High Level System Features (con’t)

Electronic Interfaces to 3rd Party Systems and Devices◦ State (such as accounting systems, adjunctive

eligibility systems)◦ Federal (such as Food Programs Reporting System

(FPRS) and Integrated Program Accounting System (IPAS) are planned)

◦ External Partners (such as wichealth.org)◦ Peripherals (such as scales, hemoglobin/hematocrit

measurement devices, signature pads) Clinic Workflow Dashboard

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High Level System Features (con’t)

Microsoft .NET 4 Technology Structured Query Language (SQL) Database Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)

◦ Uses XBAP (XAML Browser Application) for download from browser

Active Server Pages (ASP) Crossroads is installed at each State’s Data

Center

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Crossroads Technology

Average monthly caseload by state for Oct 12-Sept 13:

Number of WIC staff members using Crossroads:

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State CaseloadAlabama 139,001

North Carolina 264,124Virginia 156,784West Virginia 46,402

State UsersAlabama 600North Carolina 1,000Virginia 580West Virginia 220

Crossroads Sizing

Pilot ◦ Start dates were adjusted from Summer 2013 to Winter

2013/2014 to allow for: User Acceptance Testing (UAT) of over 5000+ scenarios Development of several Change Requests identified during

UAT Set-up and testing of FI states was more time consuming than

EBT state set-up Rollout

◦ VA Pilot began 11/18/2013 (completed 5 of 5 rollouts)◦ WV Pilot began 1/21/2014 (completed 4 of 7 rollouts)◦ NC Pilot began 2/10/2014 (completed 4 of 10 rollouts)◦ AL Pilot began 2/24/2014 (completed 4 of 10 rollouts)

Warranty (October 2014-October 2015)◦ Continue working on Consortium deferred non–essential Change

Requests9

Crossroads Status

Begin Process Early! ◦ Focus on Environment and Configuration set-up

Realize Data Conversion is a complicated process ◦ Identify data to convert ◦ Verify results

Utilize a “Mission Control Center” during pilot

Develop a Communication Strategy

Planning will pay off! ◦ Realize that you can’t plan, anticipate and mitigate

everything

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Crossroads Lessons Learned

Testing is an ongoing activity

Staffing Challenges◦ There will be turnover in staff ◦ Balancing act for staff assigned to project activities

along with existing job responsibilities

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Crossroads Lessons Learned (con’t)

Crossroads EBT Interface is built on Universal Interface Specifications version 3

What Worked Well for Crossroads EBT◦ Moving from legacy EBT to Crossroads EBT◦ Moving from legacy FI to Crossroads EBT

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Crossroads EBT

Crossroads is in the process of forming an official User Group to continue the positive, forward momentum of the Application as it is adopted by other states

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Future of Crossroads

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Several sessions throughout this EBT User Group Meeting will be discussing and demonstrating the Crossroads application

Go to NC WIC Program Web Page found at: http://www.nutritionnc.com/wic/conferences.htm and view Crossroads Training videos

If you want to know more…