The San Francisco Human Services Agency (HSA) supports individuals, families, and communities with food, health care, financial, employment, child care, and protective services. It is responsible for administering Medi-Cal - California’s Medicaid health program. This program pays for a variety of medical services for children and adults with limited income and resources. Medi-Cal is supported by federal and state taxes. In 2022, Civic Edge began working with HSA to develop an online Medi-Cal handbook. This handbook would bring together information and resources for the first time, making it easier for staff to share, search, and find information. In streamlining information, the goal of the handbook is to improve how healthcare is administered.
Our team started by interviewing and engaging HSA team members across HSA departments. Input from this early feedback provided insights on current challenges or constraints, priorities, and, at times, differing interests where compromises would need to be found. Based on the feedback received, Civic Edge recommended an online platform that had the additional benefit of being adapted for future HSA projects. We then worked closely with HSA to organize complex, deeply interwebbed content into a clear table of contents and to build out the online platform. Development of the online platform included creation of a style guide and easy “how to” to introduce new HSA team members for working within the platform, preparation and documentation of online trainings, and setup for a feedback session to receive input while the handbook was still in test phases.
Civic Edge also supported HSA in identifying and carrying out an editing process for uploading content to the new handbook. The guiding goal behind the online handbook’s development was to provide HSA with a solid foundation for easily maintaining content, while integrating other agency systems and leaving room for flexibility to meet future needs.