3 Ways to Reduce Waste, Fraud and Abuse

As more government agencies move to self-service and eliminate paper based transactions, agencies must place an emphasis of preventing waste, fraud and abuse. These efforts come when agencies are required to deliver increased services, at lower costs. In a time when the economy is slowly climbing out of a recession, increased pressures have been placed on government to assist those in need of housing, unemployment, food and health assistance.

A report from EMC, Reducing Fraud, Waste, and Abuse in Government, EMC lays out a strategy to help agencies remain proper stewards of taxpayer money. The report pays attention to how social programs can benefit from robust analysis of data to reduce waste, fraud and abuse.

For example, EMC used the example of unemployment payments – as recipients may receive money after they have become employed or by misrepresenting their identities. To avoid these incidents, the report provides many insights as to how big data, analytics and data can drive improved decision-making and transform how services are delivered. Three insights from the paper that I found most intriguing are found below.

• Identity Verification: Agencies need to be able to immediately identify identities to reduce risk. It’s very easy to create false identities or pose as other individuals, agencies must assure services are delivered to the intended individuals.
• Adaptive Authentication: Agencies can set up authentication and risk management platforms that monitor abnormal behaviors with an organization. With this, a risk assessment can be run behind the scenes, as to not disturb user experience, but warn administrators if abnormal behavior has occurred.
• Integrated Benefits Management: One of the interesting sections of the report was when EMC identifies the importance of an integrated benefits approach for social programs. In other words, EMC believes that by leveraging data across silos, agencies can allow citizens to apply for various programs at once, and staff can have a full view of a client.

There is no doubt that the world is becoming more interconnected, and there is great promise in the ability for agencies to leverage data and information to transform how services are delivered.

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EMC Corporation, a global IT leader, enables the federal government to transform its operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, delivered in partnership with leading government contractors and federal systems integrators, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping federal IT departments to store, manage, protect, and analyze their most valuable asset—information—in a more agile, trusted, and cost-efficient way. Additional information can be found at www.EMC.com/federal.