PROVIDENCE – Last week, Gov. Gina Raimondo decided to ax two high level members of her team: Melba Depena Affigne, director of the R.I. Department of Human Services, and Thom Guertin, the chief technology officer, were forced to resign.

The announcement came on Thursday afternoon, Jan. 12, four months almost to the day after the disastrous launch of the $364 million Unified Health Infrastructure Project, known as UHIP, on Sept. 13, 2016. The botched launch had been followed by a continuing wave of glitches, dysfunctions and errors, caused in large part by problems with the new software system built by Deloitte.

The words chosen by Raimondo to announce the axing of two public servants had a revealing twist to them: “I’ve reached the end of my rope,” she said. Raimondo was not, however, the one being hung out to blame in public.

The mood was somber at the news briefing; no one was smiling as the usual Rhode Island media suspects gathered around the conference table in the executive conference room on the fourth floor of the Department of Administration building, awaiting the entrance by Raimondo.

Attending were reporters from The Providence Journal, NBC10, WPRI, WPRO, Rhode Island Public Radio, Latino Public Radio, and ABC6, among others.

Afterward, the reporters dutifully posted their stories and photos recounting the public “blaming” of Depena-Affigne and Guertin – or, perhaps more accurately, the narrative told by Raimondo, as she offered her version about what had happened, and why.

Where did the buck stop?
The problem, of course, is that the public sacrifice of Depena-Affigne and Guertin to appease the gods of public opinion did not resolve a number of key questions.

• Who actually made the decision to push the button and go live on Sept. 13? How involved was Raimondo in making that decision?

Sources inside the Raimondo administration told ConvergenceRI that Depena-Affigne and Guertin were not the actual decision-makers on the UHIP project. Rather, the sources said, much of the decision-making power resided with Elizabeth Roberts, secretary of the R.I. Executive Office of Health and Human Services, and, in particular, with her deputy director, Jennifer Wood.

• Can the problems with the Deloitte software be fixed?

Maybe yes, maybe no. The forced resignations of Depena-Affigne and Guertin do nothing to resolve the delays in provider reimbursements for childcare, assisted living, home care, and nursing home facilities. The online portal for applying for long-term care Medicaid services has never worked, exacerbating the delays in determining eligibility. Barriers remain in access to care and benefits.

The reported disconnect in the interface between UHIP software and the MMIS software still remains unresolved, according to providers.

While it may sound good from a public relations standpoint that Raimondo decided to withhold nearly $15 million in payments to Deloitte, as part of an effort to hold the contractor accountable, fixing the system may require expensive workarounds and even the construction of new build-outs to the software system to correct what Deloitte built, according to sources familiar with what it takes to remedy software glitches.

“Once it’s operating properly, this system will improve customer service and save taxpayer money,” Raimondo asserted in the news release issued after the briefing. That is a promise that may not be able to be kept; the underlying assumption about the capability of UHIP to improve customer service and to save taxpayer money may prove to be faulty.

In terms of history, glitches caused by the UHIP system built by Deloitte cost HealthSource RI an extra $9 million in 2014, because of the required manual overrides to the system, according to a briefing book prepared by outdoing HealthSource RI executive director Christine Ferguson. [See link to ConvergenceRI story below.]

• What has been the actual cost of building the system? And how much more will it cost to make it work?

In terms of numbers, the cost of the UHIP is pegged at $364 million, with the bulk of the money provided by the feds, with some $80 million invested by the state of Rhode Island.

What has not been added to that accounting tally is the enormous amount of time that government workers within the state bureaucracy spent trying to get the system up and running and then attempting to make the system work after its disastrous launch.

As recent emails published by The Providence Journal [released following to a freedom of information request] show, many hard-working staff voiced their concerns and worries about the UHIP software, often in a constructive, rational manner in attempts to try and fix the problems. [No one appeared to be listening to what they said.]

Translated, what could these state employees have been working on if they hadn’t been trying to fix UHIP before and after its launch?

• How much did the promotional efforts of Raimondo’s communications team to assuage concerns about UHIP and downplay the problems factor into the making the problem worse?

Indeed, this was the very first question asked at the conclusion of Raimondo’s remarks at the press briefing, posed by ConvergenceRI.

ConvergenceRI: One of the things, Governor, I think that there may have been efforts to oversell the program as you were implementing UHIP with your communications strategy. There may not have been enough doubts [expressed] that this may not go well. We were told that everything was going to work out, and then [after the launch] that everything was working out. Was some of the fault that expectations were set too high by your communications team in selling this project?
RAIMONDO: I think it is certainly the case that all of us underestimated just how hard it was going to be to implement a brand new system, to take a 30-year-old system, replace it with a brand new system, run 400 million data points, and service 306,000 Rhode Islanders. I think we probably did underestimate the enormity of the challenge.

The question may not have been as precise as it could have been: pinpointing the credibility gap that legislators identified at the third oversight hearing on Dec. 20, between what providers were saying and the responses by Raimondo’s team that things were getting better.

As reported by ConvergenceRI: After listening to the conflicting narratives, Rep. Antonio Giarrusso said that the providers and Raimondo’s team sounded as if they were “living on two different planets.”

In the first two hearings, Giarusso continued, legislators had been told that things were improving, and there was a little more work to do. “As I am listening to the providers, it’s like the sky is falling. Where is the real truth?”

The next day, as a guest on “A Lively Experiment,” the host, Jim Hummel, asked ConvergenceRI whether the Governor’s response had addressed the question asked.

The answer was no, not really.

Where do we go from here?
In 30 days, Raimondo will have the preliminary assessment, from her new “eyes” on the ground, to explain what happened, what the problems are – and perhaps, the direction that the state needs to take in the future.

How to fix those problems, however, may prove intractable – without a significant investment of more resources and the hiring of more people.

The bottom line: Raimondo now owns UHIP. She may have inherited the project and the contract, but it is now in her possession, politically.