Strengthening Accountability

Systematically Eliciting and Acting on Feedback

Project Goals

As a mission-driven government agency, OHA must be responsive to the people it serves. Yet, the Agency lacks a systematic method for receiving and responding to customer feedback. OHA has committed to standing up a technical solution for people to provide real-time feedback, which will allow the agency to improve service delivery, transparency, and accountability.

Most Recent Project Update​

The project team is expanding its mechanism to receive and act on inquiries that come to OHA, providing a systematic method for receiving and responding to customer feedback. The project team is working internally to understand how to best incorporate shared inboxes that currently capture feedback into this tool to automate and streamline the feedback tracking process across the agency.

Measuring Customer Service Performance

Project Goals

Establish and regularly assess Agency-wide measures of customer service, transparency, and accountability.

Most Recent Project Update

The project team is developing three different surveys to collect feedback from the individuals OHA serves to improve the OHA customer experience. Each poll varies in question style, accessibility, and frequency to gather specific feedback based on the service provided. The first survey is a survey link available in all staff email signatures that customers can use to provide immediate feedback. The second survey is a soon to be available link on the OHA website to collect feedback about key performance measures such as timeliness of services, helpfulness of OHA staff, and overall quality of service. The third survey is a biennial customer contact survey that polls a random sample of individuals who have contacted OHA to understand their thoughts on the agency. The project team is finalizing poll designs to go live in Fall 2025.

Improving Agency Responsiveness​

Project Goals

Establish and implement an Agency-wide policy on improving responsiveness to internal and external outreach, incorporating those expectations into staff and manager performance reviews.

Most Recent Project Update

The joint OHA-ODHS workgroup completed the first draft of the agency responsiveness policy to meet the statewide customer service requirements published by Oregon’s Department of Administrative Services (DAS) in November 2024.These requirements include response times, inclusive access, continuous improvement processes, data analytics, and reporting capabilities to support data-driven decisions based on customer feedback. OHA shared the draft policy with DAS in late March 2025 for feedback. Once their feedback is incorporated, the revised draft will be shared with internal shareholders and external facing partners for feedback and finalization over the summer, with the finalized policy going into effect in late 2025.

*Efforts to centralize data for all OHA Call Centers has been split out from this work into its own project.

Increasing Accountability and Stewardship of Public Dollars

Project Goals

Increase Agency accountability and stewardship of public dollars by launching a series of budgetary process improvements to be carried out by a newly established Financial Investment and Outcomes Office (FIOO). These changes include designing and implementing policy spend plans for all proposed investments across divisions; evaluating whether and to what extent investment allocations achieve specific policy objectives; and publishing budgetary impact reports, which clearly document the costs, outputs, and outcomes of major Agency initiatives.

Most Recent Project Update

The Financial Investments and Outcomes Office (FIOO) is focused on improving financial processes and better aligning program funding with agency goals. The team is improving and tailoring processes to use funding more efficiently and has implemented these processes with its three initial priority programs, Public Health Modernization, Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area Domestic Wells Public Health Project, and Measure 110. FIOO is moving onto its second priority programs cohort (Health Care Market Oversight, Health-Related Social Needs, and Community Partner Outreach Program) kicking-off the process with these groups in mid-March. FIOO’s work helps programs deliver better services to the people of Oregon and help OHA deliver on its mission of eliminating health inequities by 2030.

Modernizing Grant Funding and Contracting

Project Goals

Community Based Organizations (CBOs) are important partners in helping OHA achieve its goals of eliminating health inequities by 2030. Yet multiple CBOs have reported challenges with OHA’s contracting process, including burdensome administrative requirements. To address these, OHA is now working in collaboration with CBOs to streamline the grant reporting process and expedite grant disbursements for CBOs.

Most Recent Project Update

The project team used insights gathered from deep dive focus group sessions with 48 Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) and recommendations provided by the Oregon legislature in Senate Bill 606, to develop a consolidated list of recommendations to improve the experience for CBOs contracting with OHA. Over the next few months, OHA will develop implementation plans for the recommendations, with the goal of beginning implementation in July 2025.

Improving Rigor and Oversight of Contract Management

Project Goals

Support OHA staff as the stewards of public dollars by promoting operational excellence in contract administration, including by mandating training requirements and evaluation for the first time and collecting more granular data tied to performance reviews about the efficacy of contracts management.

Most Recent Project Update

To improve how the agency manages its various contracts with external partners, the project team is developing new trainings and refining existing trainings for staff who manage contracts to ensure that OHA and the people of Oregon receive the services that they are paying for. Additionally, the agency has revised the metrics it uses to track contract administration, providing the insights needed to improve contract administrator trainings where needed and make data-driven contracting decisions.

Project Goals

Implementing a standard customer service measure across all OHA member-facing call centers and identifying methods to optimize customer service and improve the measure.

Most Recent Project Update

OHA is exploring new ways to improve and deliver the highest quality customer service to the people it serves. OHA recently launched a project to assess the Customer Service Unit (CSU) to understand how to enhance operations to improve the experience and better serve OHP members when calling the CSU. In March, the project team conducted interview sessions and focus groups with call center employees to gather insights to inform the process improvement recommendations report on track to be finalized in April 2025.