Report 2008-501 Recommendation 1 Responses

Report 2008-501: California Prison Health Care Services: It Lacks Accurate Data and Does Not Always Comply With State and Court-Ordered Requirements When Acquiring Information Technology Goods and Services (Release Date: January 2009)

Recommendation #1 To: Correctional Health Care Services, California

To ensure that it has complete and accurate information related to its contracts, Prison Health Services should ascertain that the internal controls over the data entered into the new enterprise-wide business information system work as intended. For contract-related data that has already been migrated from old contract databases to the new system, it needs to ensure the accuracy of key fields such as the ones for contract amount, service type, and the data fields that identify contracts initiated by Prison Health Services by comparing the data stored in its new database to existing hard-copy files.

6-Month Agency Response

Prison Health Services stated that it has implemented the processes required to ensure complete and accurate contract information. It has also established one certified trainer and two certified power users to ensure the new enterprise-wide system is used to its highest potential. Further, according to Prison Health Services, to ensure that complete and accurate IT contract information has been migrated to the new enterprise-wide system, it has established various internal controls such as comparing the hard-copy contracts to an internal tracking log in the enterprise-wide system and reviewing key fields in the new enterprise-wide system upon receiving a copy of an executed agreement. (See 2011-406 p. 62)

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Fully Implemented

All Recommendations in 2008-501

Agency responses received after June 2013 are posted verbatim.