{"id":11314,"date":"2025-09-19T12:10:45","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.carahsoft.com\/wordpress\/?p=11314"},"modified":"2025-09-19T12:10:46","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T17:10:46","slug":"carahsoft-insights-from-mesc-modernization-ai-and-the-cloud-blog-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.carahsoft.com\/wordpress\/carahsoft-insights-from-mesc-modernization-ai-and-the-cloud-blog-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Insights from MESC: Modernization, AI and the Cloud\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At this year\u2019s Medicaid Enterprise Systems Conference (MESC), held August 11-14 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Federal officials, technology partners and thought leaders joined to share insights on modernization, artificial intelligence (AI), fraud prevention and cloud adoption. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carahsoft attended MESC alongside its partners to facilitate connections between healthcare systems and technology vendors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are the top five insights from MESC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Unified Observability Enables Modernization<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

As agencies modernize, observability is becoming critical to success. In the session \u201cYou Can\u2019t Modernize What You Can\u2019t See: Observability for Medicaid Cloud Future,\u201d Datadog<\/a> speakers Greg Reeder, the Senior Director of the Public Sector Marketing, Ryan Gault, the Regional Sales Director for SLED East, and Abe Rosloff, the Enterprise Solution Engineer for SLED, discussed best practices for the cloud. Observability reduces the time it takes teams to find system bottlenecks. With Datadog\u2019s unified observability SaaS platform, agencies can utilize real-time monitoring to oversee critical systems. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)<\/a> <\/strong>has released new modules that run alongside 30 year old modular systems. Onboarding the cloud to legacy systems can be tricky, so Datadog\u2019s unified platform provides a layer of visibility that empowers users with insight in the form of an easy-to-use dashboard. Working with a large Medicaid agency on both coasts under contracts with the National Association of State Procurement Officials (NASPO)<\/a>, the US General Services Administration (GSA)<\/a> and OMNIA, Datadog helps pinpoint issues quickly through their SaaS platform.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Datadog\u2019s<\/a> unified monitoring, agencies gain real-time visibility into user interactions to proactively identify and address breaches before they arise. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. AI Use Cases for Medicaid\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n
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In the session \u201cAvoiding AI Landmines in Medicaid: What Worked, What Didn’t and What We’ve Learned,\u201d speakers Eng Tan and Cynthia Afkhami from Automated Health Systems (AHS)<\/a> discussed the pros and cons of various AI usages. AHS discussed its digital journey in AI adoption; it took three months for users to learn terminology, three months to build the model and six to nine months to test it. While building the AI was easy, the production stage was more challenging. Instead of traditional IT testing, AI requires strategic, human-centered testing. In one case study, AHS designed Infobot<\/a>, a \u201cdigital butler\u201d for customer support representatives that helped translate notes between Spanish and English. This resulted in reduced wait times, a 3% increase in scores and reduced attrition. AHS attributes this success to relevant management buy-ins, IT management support, staff participation, senior management support and focused training. Ultimately, AHS recommends having a solid foundation of data management, governance frameworks and team training before implementing AI. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Learn how AI can help streamline processes to build stronger, more resilient healthcare systems with Carahsoft\u2019s AI solutions.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. How GenAI Can Embolden Healthcare\u00a0<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the session \u201cUnleashing the Power of Generative AI on Care Planning in Healthcare,\u201d speakers Mason Tanaka, the Deputy Commissioner and CIO from Alabama Medicaid Agency, and Andy Pitman, the State and Local Government Health and Human Services (HHS) Strategy Director for Microsoft, showcased Alabama Medicaid<\/a>\u2019s  <\/strong>goals and guiding principles behind its new generative AI (genAI) platform, AI Continuum. In collaboration with Microsoft<\/a>, Alabama Medicaid aims to bring genAI into healthcare planning by operationalizing various tools in testing and production to help teams reclaim ownership of the planning and design process. Through AI Continuum, nurses and social workers were able to support clinical decisions and use risk stratification predictive analytics to secure better patient outcomes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leverage genAI insights and maximize your data\u2019s potential through Databricks\u2019s<\/a> optimized data infrastructure and scalable, predictive machine learning models.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Modernization, the Cloud and AI<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the session \u201cCMS-5: MES State of States,\u201d speakers from CMS Ed Dolly, the Deputy Director for Data Systems Group, and Eugene Gabriyelov, the Director Division of State Systems, reviewed the progress made in Medicaid Enterprise Systems (MES) and future goals.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top takeaways include: <\/p>\n\n\n\n