Ad Hoc at the ISM Conference

On Monday, I attended the 2017 ISM Conference at the Gaylord National Harbor, south of Washington D.C. It is the 50th annual conference of the sponsoring organization, American Public Human Services Association, APHSA.

ISM is the largest health & human services technology event dedicated to improving the delivery of health and human services programs.

In the opening session, ISM Chair Kristen Duus gave a brief but moving take on the history of the conference, which tracks along with health and welfare legislative initiatives of the Lyndon Johnson administration. The work of the Kerner Commision— Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders. It was a time of policy action, a time for investigation into the cause of social injustice, and a time of nascent understanding that punch cards containing data was key to serving people. It was in this atmosphere that the first ISM conference was held in Chicago.

At Ad Hoc, our core values start with “Work on things that matter”. Projects like HealthCare.gov and Vets.gov allow us to do that, and that’s why we’re excited to be among the 1,300 attendees at ISM— state government technology leaders, workers from agencies that focus on child welfare and human needs, and others looking to make technology in the service of people. We feel our approach to digital services could be leveraged to great benefit on these projects, and we’re excited and looking to get in touch with state agencies to talk about it.