Coordinating activities from multiple ministries in one, consolidated, easy-to-use digital strategy is a significant challenge when designing provincial digital services.

This challenge undoubtedly contributes to causing digital public services to lag behind the private sector. It often manifests as disconnected services and overly numerous points of access. 

To illustrate how these issues can hold provinces and states back and how solving them can benefit governments of any size and their constituents, let’s examine an example scenario.

This is the story of Max, a provincial CIO, whose challenges are representative of the challenges of many provinces and states across North America.   

Setting the Scene 

Max is a provincial CIO and is very invested in improving citizens’ lives with quality provincial digital services.

Unfortunately, his province has encountered two major issues that have been holding back its digital transformation. Citizens have reported a low level of satisfaction with how disconnected provincial digital services are as well as with disruptions in service that have historically come with the implementation of new services.

Max believes in his province’s digital strategy and wants to find ways to ensure that it better serves its citizens.  

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Solving Siloed Services

Max has experienced firsthand how frustrating his province’s siloed services can be as a citizen.

Healthcare, taxes, and driver’s licenses are all separate services requiring their own authentication procedures, to name just a few. Therefore, Max isn’t surprised to hear his own frustration reflected in citizens’ comments. 

Not only do citizens find it difficult to navigate all these disconnected services, but they are also concerned about the amount of information they must provide to authenticate themselves. 

They wonder how that information is used and why they must provide so much information every time they want to access a new service.

For example, the province has received numerous comments from citizens who are frustrated that they cannot renew their health cards without visiting multiple websites or filling out numerous forms that they have already fulfilled.  

In addition, they don’t understand why the information they have already provided to verify their identity for the purpose of getting prescription drug insurance is not sufficient to authenticate them within the health card renewal ecosystem.  

Max wants to consolidate provincial digital services and ensure that citizens know how their information is used.

Furthermore, he wants to ensure that citizens have control over their digital footprint and can give informed consent for the use of their personal data whenever they are interacting with provincial digital services. 

A solution such as CitizenOne and its Services Catalog Accelerator (SCA) feature would enable Max to do all this and more.

In fact, on the SCA’s dashboard, Max realizes he could not only bring together all the province’s digital in one place but also organize them by category on dedicated cards.

He is particularly pleased to see that he will be able to list all health-related services on one card, including health card renewals, prescription drug insurance, and even appointment booking on one card.  

Furthermore, by implementing CitizenOne’s SCA, he can enable different ministers to make decisions on specific cards without compromising the user experience with unnecessary complexities. This includes managing user consent for sharing private information in a manner that safeguards privacy. 

Improving Services Without Sacrificing Citizen Satisfaction 

Max’s province recently launched a new online platform for citizens to learn about and apply for programs to support new parents.

Access to these programs previously required new parents to access multiple websites and complete multiple separate applications. 

The new platform was launched to streamline access to the programs and ensure citizens looking to start or grow their families were aware of all the provincial programs available to them.

Unfortunately, when the program was launched, there was a significant period during which the services were not available.

Although people using the new platform have reported having a positive experience with it, many new parents were frustrated that service was interrupted for so long. Max would like to avoid this issue in the future.  

Max is looking for a solution like CitizenOne and in particular, its SCA, which can be implemented without service disruptions.

CitizenOne’s SCA’s self-service configuration and standards-based protocols ensure seamless integration with existing systems. Max will have peace of mind when it comes to updates since years of testing ensure that pushing updates is quick, easy, and seamless.

Furthermore, CitizenOne’s SCA would allow Max’s province to automate security updates, should it choose to do so.  

Complex System, Simple Solution

Like many governmental bodies, Max's province can ensure that its digital services run smoothly by using a consolidated solution.

CitizenOne’s SCA was designed to be a flexible, configurable tool for governments to easily integrate into their overall digital strategy.

Its inherent security features, consent-based approach to data privacy, interoperability, and intuitive UX can help you smoothly consolidate your digital strategy.   

Find out more about CitizenOne’s Services Catalog Accelerator and how it can improve your province or state’s digital services.