The Electronic Adjudication Management System (EAMS) project was undertaken by the Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) and the Division of Workers' Compensation (DWC) for the State of California. The CA DWC is one of the largest if not the largest workers compensation agency across the entire country with around 1200 users across 24 different locations throughout the State of California. 

Prior to EAMS, the DWC system was a completely paper based system with paper files being pushed from one unit or person to the other for individual case actions. Applicants file approximately 140000 cases with DWC every year and more than 36 million pages of filing annually. In addition to this the old case management systems used by DWC were five disparate 20 year old legacy systems which were non-integrated and functionally limited. The systems had duplicate and sometimes conflicting data for the same case in a business that requires constant interaction between the various units. Things core to the business of DWC such as calendaring and setting hearings for judges were done manually on a paper based calendar. External parties such as the injured worker, the employers, law firms, insurance carriers and lien claimants did not have electronic access to the case information.

Paper intensive business processes lead to a significant number of missed deadlines required by regulation & legislation. Lack of technology to efficiently share workload amongst offices & personnel led led to larger case backlogs. Significant costs were incurred for the receipt, processing, forwarding and storage of the millions of pages received each year. Limited automated interaction between various business units led to delays in information sharing and processing. Lack of automated workflows and an inefficient escalation process limited the ability of management to intervene and process cases efficiently. Limited access to documents and information in a case often means that parties were unprepared at the time of hearings and more hearings were required to adjudicate a case. Lack of automated scheduling of hearings resulted in inefficient judge and hearing calendars and slower adjudication of cases.

This ultimately led to adverse impacts on the citizens of California i.e the workers impacted by the injury and the entities such as law firms, employers and insurance carriers involved. The work of the DWC/WCAB by definition encounters people at difficult points in their lives. Injured workers face uncertainty about their careers, as well as physical discomfort related to their injuries. And, in order to resolve any disputes arising between injured workers and employers, both parties must navigate a legal and bureaucratic maze that includes delays, lost and missing information, and unpredictable outcomes. While the parties are dealing with the delays in getting hearing dates and moving the case along, the injured worker continues to suffer due to expensive medical treatment or job uncertainties.

The overarching goal of EAMS is to improve the outcomes for the injured workers in the State of California by realizing operational efficiencies and lowering the overall cost of the program by implementing an enterprise wide system that:
- Streamlines the process of creating files, setting hearings, and serving decisions, orders and awards
- Provides seamless and automated interaction across business units
- Improves access to case records while preserving confidentiality 
- Provides cost and time savings to parties to a case and to the State
- Reduces delays 
- Eliminates duplication
- Increases uniformity in practices and procedures
- Gathers data to measure workload to allow management to determine better distribution of work

Technology was at the core of this massive undertaking. The DWC truly needed an enterprise wide system that provided them the ability to have an integrated case management, document management, calendaring, cashiering and business intelligence and reporting system that truly integrated the business processes of all disparate business units involved and at the same time provided secure electronic access to external case parties as well. These diverse set of requirements could not be met by any single product out in the market place and required an integration of over 10 different COTS products together working in tandem to provide an enterprise solution that scaled as a Statewide system to the level of business operations employed by the DWC.

A case management product is customized to store and manage all the case and participant related information in a central repository to allow data sharing across units and offices, record a full history of case events automatically, prepare notices and orders through integration with MS Word, review and manage workload. This component also allows parties to a case to access detailed case information, case status and documents associated with a case.

A suite of document management products is combined and integrated with the case management product to allow DWC to rid itself of the millions of incoming pages each year that would have been stored on shelves, and instead store this information in an electronic case file. It also allows external users (e.g. attorneys, employers, insurance companies) to file and view case documents. Additionally, users can annotate and make notes on electronic documents in a secure manner. All of this was also integrated with a statewide scanning and ICR/OCR system.

A workflow module is used to integrate document management and case management components - alerting users when documents are filed in a case and storing data extracted from documents in the case management component. Workflow also alerts users when deadlines are approaching. When deadlines are missed, workflow escalates to supervisors to allow them to take necessary action.

An automated hearing and calendaring module provides a shared calendar system that is accessible by various users within DWC, including judges, presiding judges, managers, clerks and secretaries. Hearings can be scheduled that do not conflict with various parties availability, while at the same time fully utilizing the resources (rooms, judges, timeslots). Automatically schedules hearings upon receipt of certain moving documents based on DWC business rules.

A cashiering system was developed that integrated a credit card processing capabilities as well as check printing capabilities into the overall solution.

Finally, an enterprise wide data warehousing and management reporting solution was developed that provides supervisors and managers with a variety of automated, regularly distributed reports that allow them to effectively monitor and manage the workload and production of their staff. It provides an indicator for areas that may require the supervisors attention and allows users to create ad hoc reports based on a unique set of information.

All of the above disparate technology components were integrated into an enterprise wide application using single user login to provide a seamless application experience for the end user.

Almost all the COTS products used in the solution are recognized as industry leading products by publications such as Gartner and Forrestor.

Yes

Yes

The new system offers a plethora of benefits to all constituents involved i.e the DWC and the DIR, all internal users of the DWC, external parties to a case such as the employers, injured workers, law firms, insurance carriers, lien claimants such as medical care centers, doctors and hospitals, other government agencies as well as the general public in the State of California.

EAMS allows the internal users i.e the 1200 employees of DWC to eliminate handling millions of pages every year resulting in delays and injuries caused by paper files to transition to a completely electronic filing and storage system that not only saves them costs and additional overhead in terms of work but also speeds up the processing of cases resulting in faster more efficient processing, fewer missed deadlines and helps in meeting statutory deadlines. Information sharing across business units is much better and accurate so that everyone has a 'single version of the truth' and ready access to the same case information & documents cutting down time spent in transporting/mailing paper files and the time spent in reconciling conflicting information. Automated case creation and case actions eliminate manual data entry and processing thus resulting in time savings. Automated workflows help in automatic task generation and/or notifications & alerts enabling reminders or escalation of tasks when deadlines are missed. Automated scheduling of hearing speeds up the manual calendaring process today, improves accuracy and helps in balancing hearing assignments across judges. Today, when a document is received, not only is the appropriate case action such as opening a case or scheduling a hearing done automatically, but alerts per business rules are sent to other business units as well so that they are aware of the case actions being taken, the right notices and correspondences are generated and sent via. Email/fax automatically all of which used to be a manual time consuming process.

The DWC, and the state as a whole, benefit from the robust reporting capabilities of the new system.  Because data is gathered electronically from the case files, the division is more effectively able to gauge workload at is 24 district office and make adjustments as needed. Additionally, the division is required to report regularly to the Legislature about how the court system is functioning for injured workers and employers. Because the division can now report data more accurately and efficiently, lawmakers are able to make better policy decisions about how to best serve the people of the state. 

External constituents such as the law firms, insurance carriers, lien claimants etc. now have secure and ready access to their case information and documents. They have the ability to file documents electronically instead of mailing in paper. They no longer have to physically come to the district offices to get a hearing date as they can choose schedule a hearing online which accounts for availability of judges without having to talk to the calendaring clerks. All of which significantly reduces the litigation and administrative costs for the case parties.

EAMS also allows other government agencies to capture and share data much easily with DWC. For example, EAMS automatically sends new case opening data such as the injured worker, case participant and injury information to the Employment Development Department (EDD) so that they can reconcile against unemployment insurance claims they process. EAMS also sends a listing of uninsured employers to the Division of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) which helps in them enforcing better compliance.

All of this ultimately helps the injured worker i.e a citizen of California get better, cheaper treatment and faster outcomes for their cases.

The new case management system is also a filing system for injured workers, employers and their representatives, who come to the district offices for help resolving disputes. Prior to EAMS, each of those requests for assistance came on a paper form. The divisions district offices were literally sinking under the weight of so much paper. Paper was routinely lost or misfiled. 

Under the new system, external users can file over the Internet using electronic forms. E-Forms provide many advantages for external users, including:
1.Forms and documents are processed into EAMS in a matter of minutes or hours, versus days or weeks
2.Users dont have to deal with paper or rely on mail
3.They allow filing beyond the time the district offices are open

Part of the way the division garnered support for the new system from external users was by using a phased approach to electronic filing, beginning with a pilot and then a trial phase. Some external users have committed to the entire process from the beginning and are seeing the benefits of electronic filing for their offices and the employers they serve:

My firm has been involved with EAMS from the external users pilot, up through go-live and now as e-form filers, says Yvonne Lang of the law firm Pearlman, Borska & Wax. 

There have been some challenges learning how to enter information and file in EAMS, but we are learning how to file more effectively EVERY DAY. Our successes are far outweighing the failures! I love being able to file a hearing request form and choose my hearing date right then and there, from the comfort of my office! Most recently, in preparation for a settlement conference, I scanned and filed ALL my trial exhibits and, upon my arrival at the district office for the hearing, all the documents were in EAMS and could be viewed by the judge. I can't tell you how EXCITED I was to see all our hard work come to fruition. It REALLY WORKS!

Another employer defense firm, Floyd, Skeren & Kelly, LLP, also has two offices in the e-Form trial.
The staff at my offices in the trial tell me how wonderful filing e-forms is, says Staff Manager Renee Sherman. Whenever weve had problems with the e-forms they have been resolved right away. Were looking forward to getting another of our offices into the next round.

The scope of the project and the speed at which it was implemented are unparalleled. To our knowledge, no other state has successfully implemented a system of this size and scale for Workers' Compensation. While other states have implemented paperless court systems, none of them integrate the number of functions present in EAMS.  The system successfully integrated over 10 different commercial-off-the-shelf products to build a seamless application. In typical public sector system implementation projects, each of the major component i.e. case management, document management or business intelligence & reporting would be a separate system implementation or a project by itself. EAMS combined all of these components to build a true statewide enterprise system in record time.

The following numbers provide some perspective on the size and complexity of EAMS
- Data successfully converted into EAMS from DWCs legacy systems : ~ 1.00 terabytes
- Transactions processed by EAMS everyday :  700,000
- Total Cases (including open and closed cases) : ~16 mil
- Number of citizens served yearly: 1,500,000
- Number of legacy systems replaced: 6 Systems
- Number of District Offices: 24
- Number of pages received by DWC daily: 232,000
- Size of the transaction database: 1,069 GB
- Number of transaction database tables: 700
- Size of the reporting database: 231 GB
- Number of servers in the production system: 23
- Number of application screens: 600

The magnitude of the project is partly due to the fact that California has one of the largest case loads, combined with a complex set of laws and regulations. California's workers' compensation system is not state run, which further complicated the process of implementation by necessitating the consideration of a multitude of external user needs.

EAMS was implemented in record time (18 months from inception to go-live) without causing any disruption to the existing court processes. Cases continued to be heard during design, conversion, training and implementation.  All necessary historical data from the legacy systems was converted and integrated into EAMS, thus maintaining historical reference material.

All 1200 DWC employees were trained to use EAMS and transitioned over to the new system to continue providing faster and better services to the State.

Additionally, over 200 external users have also obtained access to the new electronic system and are using it successfully.

EAMS was a huge undertaking and a significant system change for the DWC as well as the external case parties involved in the Workers' Compensation business in the State of CA. The obstacles ranged from resource constraints to training, organizational change management and apprehension and resistance from the external user community.

From a system standpoint alone, it was extremely challenging to find specialized resources with the knowledge of the different COTS products being integrated. The EAMS project was a unique team of DIR and DWC resources from the State along with the System Integrator resources from Deloitte Consulting, the various software vendor resources and the data center resources for a combined team of almost over a hundred people from various backgrounds that formed the 'engine' which drove the project to a success.

Training was another key challenge for the EAMS project.  For staff who historically had used a mainframe system or even manual processes, transitioning to a web-based user interface could be a struggle.  The training team of resources from DWC and Deloitte Consulting combated this challenge by:
- Carefully outlining a curriculum of both general and role-specific courses to provide staff with as job-specific a training experience as possible
- Developing a first step eLearning course that got staff familiar with the look and general use of the system prior to beginning classroom training
- Employing a Train-the-Trainer approach to training delivery that allowed staff to be trained by their trusted leaders and peers
- Creating a user manual and job aids as desk references for staff after the training delivery ended 

Organizational change management challenges on the EAMS project primarily arose from increased standardization that required changes to current processes .  For example, different offices previously tracked their hearing calendars in a manual book, and their methods varied widely from office to office.  To facilitate an effective transition to the new business processes as well as to build awareness and encourage adoption of the new system, DWC implemented a number of change management activities.  Examples included: 
- Demonstrations and town hall meetings several months prior to implementation
- Process walkthroughs that tested the effectiveness and efficiency of the new business processes with all the staff roles involved
- Creation and distribution of handbooks for the pilot and go-live that outlined key contact information and processes
- Role-specific meetings that addressed the specific concerns of staff in particular roles, such as clerks or supervisors
- Post-go-live conference calls and weekly bulletins that addressed frequently asked questions and provided important news and information for staff

These activities enabled staff to both visualize the upcoming changes and adopt them into their daily business operations upon implementation.  

From an external stakeholder perspective, implementing EAMS resulted in pressure and scrutiny from key parties (such injured workers, law firms, claims administrators, and lien claimants).  An external communications plan targeted those parties directly by gaining their feedback and buy-in early in the process, and addressing their ongoing concerns via phone conferences, newsletters, a comprehensive website and other mechanisms. In addition, a phased e-Forms trial was set up for those parties to build awareness and adoption of the new system.

The EAMS project has been a long time coming in the sense of modernization.  For almost a hundred years, since the inception of the Workers Compensation Appeals Board, the files supporting the litigated claims have been paper.  The bulk of the papers and the numerous issues surrounding the movement, storage, retention, safety and destruction of paper files, as well as the advent of cheaper and more effective storage and retrieval methods pointed the helm of the EAMS project towards a natural conclusion  computerized and digital filing and management systems.  

EAMS however still had to navigate the tough procurement processes in the State of California and justify the need for system overhaul. Given the heavy involvement of a very powerful external user community, EAMS constantly faced a lot of scrutiny and challenges with apprehensions around disruption to the current services provided by the DWC due to implementation of a new system.

The RAND study in 2001 identified a number of issues regarding the timeliness of court cases within DWC. The Administrative Director acknowledged the overwhelming issue of paper inundation and a Feasibility Study Report (FSR) was prepared in 2004. The Feasibility Study Report was approved by the Department of Finance which then led to the creation of a Request for Proposal (RFP) for COTS software purchase and system integration services. Subsequent to the FSR approval, the project had to also go through two approved Special Project Reports (SPR) to get the required number of licenses and services. 

Going forward, EAMS may face significant challenges to get adequate money allocated for the Maintenance & Operations as well as enhancements to the application and additional training required for users.

Achieved

EAMS has a tremendous influence on, impact to and presents opportunities for other applications and organizations. EAMS touches all participating entities in the Workers Compensation business in California. Entities such as law firms, employers, insurance carriers, lien claimants such as hospitals and medical care centers are able file electronically and thus can provide much more efficient and faster service to their clients. They are able to respond faster, reduce administrative and litigation costs associated with a paper based system and thus streamline their business operations as well ultimately meeting their critical service needs of better outcomes for their clients. They have ready access to case information regardless of their location and have up to date information on the status of their case and thus see reduced workload and higher productivity and efficiencies in running their business operations as well.

Several of them are making improvements on their end as well to modernize their systems to fully utilize the capabilities of EAMS. For example, several lien claimants have partnered with smaller software vendors to develop an electronic interface to EAMS that gives them an up to date status of the liens on their cases. Several external entities have also expressed interest in implementing solutions to file documents and forms in bulk taking electronic filing efficiencies to the next level, something that was not even a possibility prior to EAMS.

EAMS has also enabled the DWC to report regularly to the Legislature on statutory compliance requirements which in turn enables law makers to make better policy decisions about how to best serve the people of the state. 

Several other agencies and their applications are now able to interface electronically with EAMS thus enabling ready access to information that can be shared cross-agencies for better business operations and decision making this minimizing fraud. Examples of these agencies are the EDD (Employment Development Department) or the DLSE (Division of Labor Standards Enforcement) and even health care entities such as Kaiser Permanente.

Other states as well as agencies have already expressed interest in adopting an EAMS like model and building an enterprise wide workers compensation system. EAMS has tremendous applicability in not only in the Labor & Workforce sector but also in the overall Health Human Services arena where social program administering involving case and document management is the core of the business. Historically a number of programs across a number of states have implemented either case management or a document management or a reporting system separately in a non-integrated fashion, but more and more agencies are now looking at adopting an EAMS like enterprise wide approach which serves as a much powerful model due to the obvious benefits of integration and seamless business processes as well as a seamless application experience for end users.

The target audience for EAMS is both the internal DWC users as well as external constituents, such as injured workers, employers, law firms, insurance companies, medical providers and lien claimants. 

All 1200 internal users in DWC have adopted the new system and use it as their primary case and document management system. This means the entire State of California is now administered through EAMS and has been successfully for the last six months.

The division's size and diversity means it has employees on both ends of the scale: those who embrace technology and those who are resistant. The magnitude of the change and the speed at which the change has been implemented created an enormous change management challenge. DWC has worked diligently to garner support for the change by providing training and communicating about the change in a variety of ways. And while the system is up and running well, it's still within the first year and many users are still experiencing a steep learning curve. 

The same can be said for external participants. Those who were quick to embrace the coming change have found the system very effective. The DWC's strategy for inducting external case participants into the new system has been to do so over time and with intensive outreach and training. Those filing electronically have seen a significant positive change: They are able to do most of their work electronically from their offices or any place with an internet connection instead of having to drive down to district offices to get hearing dates or physically mailing the papers and forms. They have ready access to case files and forms. There are about 200 external entities using the system now and the DWC plans to add many more external users to the system in the coming years.