Government Technology Leadership Awards Improving Services

ew Mexico has made it a lot easier to track polluters, and has managed to clean up its own record keeping in the process.

In the past, finding information on environmental offenders or checking the status of a permit could have taken weeks and probably would have required numerous phone calls to different divisions in the state's Environment Department.

But now, the department has consolidated all its information for environmental permitting, compliance and enforcement into a single database. Citizens, state regulators and businesses have easy access to information online through the Integrated Database for Environmental Assurance. The system has been used in house for nearly a year and will be available to the public next month.

Ultimately, the $3 million database will save close to that amount annually and should cut the environmental permitting process from weeks to hours and eliminate the need to keep thousands of paper files.

"The information to make good decisions on compliance, enforcement and permitting is at [people's] fingertips, instead of being in a variety of different places," says Renee Martinez, chief information officer for the Environment Department.

-George Cahlink

Why it's Innovative
Eliminated the need to chase down data from different sources.

What it Changed
Cumbersome paper files were replaced by a user-friendly database.

laska spans 586,412 square miles, but has just 12,200 miles of public roads. As a result, 75 percent of state communities and 25 percent of residents cannot reach a hospital by road. They have to rely on other modes of transportation, such as small planes or boats, and those only move if the weather cooperates.

By creating the world's largest telemedicine network, five federal agencies are bringing health care services to the state's most isolated populations. Many of these areas are served not by physicians, but by lesser-trained health care providers. In the past, they would have to describe a patient's symptoms to a doctor over the phone. With telemedicine, the aides can transmit medical records and pictures to a physician over the Internet and get real-time diagnoses and treatment options for patients.

Started in 1998, the network serves 235 sites statewide and handles an average of 400 cases per month.

The partnership is a collaborative effort by the Veterans Affairs Department, the Defense Department, the Coast Guard, Indian Health Services and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

-Matthew Weinstock

Why it's Innovative
Transformed how health care is delivered in rural areas.

What it Changed
Patients miles from cities and towns now have top medical care.