eSignature Legitimateness for Government in United States

How to eSign a document: eSignature legitimateness for Government in United States

and we use sort of the uber method was you know we can just go into town and deliver uber cars and drivers and then when we get called out on it then we will address those legal concerns as we go but in the meantime we're going to be providing this service that people will love and people have come to love it in our organization and statewide it's becoming more and more prevalent in the regional center system we have 21 regional centers in the state and all combine we we take care of about 280,000 folks with developmental disabilities and we went to the level of going to the federal government getting approval from sending the Centers for Medicaid Services to accept electronic signature for all of our certifications and things for Medicaid went to the state level we amended some laws got some some laws changed to add a chronic signature to the Civil Code state level in the apartment level we wrote the program directive is which is necessary for all the regional centers to start using electronic signatures locally all of our providers all of our families that are capable use it and love it and you know we continue on this digital transformation and we're working on some some more and better things not just for us but for the entire state system so it's been a quite a journey for us that's fantastic and what's so what's next for you what's next for the four for your regional journey alright for your journey well we've um we partnered with our San Diego regional center they are the authors of our case management system and many of the forms that we use throughout the state you know our paper forms where traditionally we would take these forms back and enter them into our case management system so we're working on new tools they're going to allow us to extract this information and then load it into the system automatically that's a big deal a lot of regional centers are now moving toward their electronic records we've we started on electronic records 15 years ago so a lot of the paths that we learned about you know starting digital staying digital is the way to go you know so we're clearing the path for other regional centers so this is a spreading across the state so it's actually kind of fun it's fun to see that you know we're not going to be the only regional center that can deliver services to folks you know in 24 hours that is just magical for us right and that was your key you know your key indicator your key measurable was being able to deliver services more quickly to more people yeah that for everything we do right you know and and you know the dollars you know ROI stuff it's such a simple calculation for us that when you know the the bill comes in for for this CFO she just signs it electronically of course and it gets processed because there's no question you know the soft savings and in the hard dollar savings behind it so that was pretty simple great and so I noticed that there are always questions about ROI and and of course with in when you're dealing with services and you're providing you know constituent services you are obviously being measured on something other than then return on investment but it's always good to have measurable results in any of these cases so right you know one thing Ken that's been really sort of astonishing you know in the social services field we have to keep track of our interactions with the folks that we serve and we do this in 15-minute increments and we have to assign them a particular type of a contact and there's there's documentation face-to-face telephone contact and and sort of a general category in in the three years that we've been doing this what we've seen which is remarkable I think we're the only ones that have ever seen this is that we're seeing a decline in the growth of documentation units and we're seeing an increase in face to face time and face to face time is the only component of our of our bill yes that is directly tied to satisfaction so we're excited about that the other regional centers are excited about that and we're seeing this more and more so that that was our ROI that's very dependent - great so I'm on to actually move us we're about we've got about 14 minutes left I want to make sure we get conversation going here and gets get to our audience questions that are kind of rolling in here pretty quickly so let's let's do that if you do have a question most of you have found and already the button on your on your console to be able to ask a question one of the questions we had of course was on on identifying cost savings ROI I think we we kind of hit on that one unless unless gentie you you did you guys do any kind of ROI assessment and procurement in the in Santa Clara County not yet since we have then this has at the enterprise platform since May of 2017 we're going to do that next year but it the success rate has been phenomenal and everybody's excited and they are cheering because you could do it well yet you at lap using your laptop or also on your cell phones and business is so fast people are not able to keep up with this they're like they lovin it great we're getting elect people asking for copies of the slides a few folks looks like they had trouble getting in they wanted to see the slides we will make the recording of this presentation available and we'll put the slides on SlideShare after the fact so no worries I had someone asking is is anyone use Danny signature for oath of office and I'm trying to think of anybody here maybe Howard did are you familiar with that use case did you support that we haven't used it for oath of office but you know one of the things that as you've been talking about signatures so our specific use that we are not authorized to use signatures East signature for right now is documents requiring the board president signature there was first there was some concerns over whether that has to be a digital signature instead of electronic signature and but but a bigger importance to us is right now the there's a california government code regarding facsimile signatures i don't know if your if you've seen that and basically the board president has to register with the state that he's allowing the clerk of the board folks to place his facsimile signature which is a rubber stamp you know each rubber stamped imprint on various documents that the clerk of the board sends out and right now our county council won't agree that an electronic signature in that case is okay so we we don't want to be troubling the board president to sign every document that goes out with his vac simile signature on it but we can't get county council to approve that using an electronic signature process would would you know serve the same purpose so that's been a unique sort of twist for us yeah i mean you run into that a lot that these sort of you know unfortunate drafting situations where there was a you know technological disadvantage or limitation at the time that created a particular policy or standard that now has to be deconstructed and questioned in order to actually make it useful and that happens a lot and when we're dealing with transformation you'll run into that almost almost daily we had a question of for the group about what specific types of you signature is being are being accepted a lot of you had mentioned and of course this goes right into the the crux of the different types of digital digital policy segments but you all mentioned that you have a particular workflow engine that you that you use in favor that you are using to control the workflow and control the signing process but what about accepting outside electronic signatures and records what what types do you accept who does your policy afford that type of type of flexibility everything and allow everything you know what's good for the goose right I think a lot of our service providers have embraced electronic signature because they see the benefits to them but as they work for us and so it spread out from them to the folks that they work with as well so it's come full circle so we're green might go on that stuff we didn't really consider in our policy signatures coming in to be honest I don't know that we've you know we've gotten any that I'm even aware of so that's kind of an interesting twist that we didn't really we focused strictly on the counties use of it from the standpoint of being the initiator rather than the receiver we may have to go back and address that right that's part part of the you know the three-legged stool yeah going digital it's that you don't always control the the workflow and you have to be able to I like that what's good for the goose is good for the gander right in advocate I mean I wonder can do you think this same type of conversation was going on when fax machines started up hearing no and I would say that the difference would be that that facsimile technology's probably pretty uniform and so and of course in order to be a part of a fax transaction you had to have a fax machine that would do the handshake in here with with electronic signatures especially with hybrid transactions you'll end up getting sometimes we end up with a cop a paper copy of electronic record that somehow found its way to paper or you'll find an email that has an electronic record attached to it so it's not just the means by which the the document was executed or delivered but also the the method that it was delivered to you and you may be a relying party that's not actually party to them to the to the transaction and what are your requirements for looking at that transaction saying yeah it's a it's it's it meets my risk threshold you know and it leads to a lot of questions that need to be kind of ironed out sometimes much much more complicated than controlling the workflow I think we had a I think that is kind of a interesting you know tale of the times you know that we have so much information now that it makes it harder and harder to know you know what's real and you know if you take a look back and at a fax machine or being able to cut and paste the signature and you know all of the troubles that are associated with that and you look at what we have today I feel like it's so much more secure today and you know one of the questions about the risk of not having rigid policies I think having flexible policy policies that are open to new technologies and new methodologies is really key to to keeping this thing moving forward without creating additional barriers that you have to deconstruct down the road when technologies change that's right and that is a question that we have about the risk of of not having the rigid policies and and I think that might be directed everybody but in particular to to you Scott you know in moving away from from by the way the the electronic authentication act at Washington still has is not dissimilar to a lot of other actually laws that have turned into regulations within other states in California included where there's a it's kind of a digital signature standard for doing state business so you can your your experience can be pretty instructive and I guess the question was can you expand on the risk of not having those rigid policies but relying more on guidelines and standards for adoption yeah I think you know the level of comfort that people have was something that's been kind of sanctioned and approved which which we did have again very prescriptive lead but but the other side is describing you know eSignatures sound symbol process that's a very open type of definition and it can't incorporate you know logins the whole thing about a gift or tiff file with a signature is kind of a misnomer so it really does allow for an X it could be a picture of your dog it could be anything so long as you you know associate it to the record with intent to sign and ensure the integrity of the record throughout the process so it's it is not just one thing and their solutions like that have baked that end we have to weave a technology kind of agnostic on that but you know making sure that you do satisfy the intent of the definition with whatever technology or whatever means that you you know you want to use I think that is important to keep that keep keep keep those options open but it does you know too much too much freedom causes paralysis sometimes so there's a fine balance there and we're trying to trying to find that but I think that's a good point about you know keeping your options open on what how to satisfy the intent of electronic signature so that you can move forward without