For federal healthcare agencies connecting with citizens as benefit recipients or patients is one of the most important missions in modern American government. Not only are they helping citizens, but they also connect with probably the most diverse range of citizens, not just in their healthcare needs but in their relationships with technology. Ensuring that new technology and apps work correctly and strengthen trust, value, and connections between agencies and citizens, whether they’re from the Silent Generation or digital natives in Gen Z, this sounds like a daunting task, because it is. Unless you have an unfailingly curious solution architect on your team.
Read on to learn more about the role solution architects play in creating the future of public health.
A generation ago, federal agencies operated in simple and largely siloed tech environments, but the future of government has different demands. Just as mainframes have given way to the cloud, digital government requires seamless and secure data exchange across interconnected systems, platforms, and global endpoints. As complexity continues to accelerate, solution architects play a critical role in shaping resilient, future-ready ecosystems that keep government service delivery agile and citizen-centric.
Candice Charlton, Vice President, Solution Architect at Maximus. sat down with Trish Barbar, host of the WIT Podcast to talk more about her career and the vital role she plays in building the future of government. While Charlton talked about the technical aspects of her job architecting technology, she revealed that the most important part of her job is understanding the mission outcomes an agency wants to achieve and then architecting in a way that makes it intuitive for the citizen to use.
“Maximus sits at the intersection of policy, operations, and technology, translating complex healthcare needs into services that real people actually use,” she shared. Much like her own wide-ranging background, Charlton has built a diverse team of solution architects at Maximus to ensure that solutions aren’t only technically sound but also take into consideration the broad spectrum of people federal agencies serve.
“Diverse perspectives are a practical necessity for designing solutions that are used by one of the most diverse user bases in the country. The systems we build at Maximus touch one in three Americans,” Charlton shared. “Our workforce now has four coming up on five generations working alongside each other. Each brings their own expectations shaped by their own familiarity with technology … as a solution architect, it’s especially important that those perspectives are represented from the start so that we can build solutions that meet citizens’ broad expectations.”
Charlton’s approach to architecting these complex solutions is to always seek these diverse opinions from the outset, and her team of solutions architects at Maximus knows to dig deep into the ‘why’ when building a new solution for a healthcare agency. “Some processes may have been designed for paper forms or in-person interactions,” she explained. “You might think that mimicking that process in a digital environment [is the right solution], but a true solution architect asks why does each step exist in the first place,” she explained.
Ultimately, the purpose of the solutions architect for Charlton is to “understand the different levels of digital fluency and incorporate those insights into the solution, so that the systems we deliver are durable and equitable for everyone who depends on them.”
To hear more from Charlton about T-shaped skill sets for solution architects, the importance of strong communications skills, and to learn why curiosity is her superpower, click on the player below.