CADDIS - Rest in Peace

I just got word that a computer program for which the State of California has spent millions of dollars and 7 years trying to acquire and develop has been “killed”. The program, called CADDIS (California Developmental Disabilities Information System) was being developed for the state’s developmental disabilities agencies called Regional Centers. Word is that the failure to negotiate ownership of the source code was the proximate cause of death.

Seven years ago, many of us in the system saw a pressing need to update a computer system that was 15 years old and badly in need of enhancements to deal with the business and regulatory environment at that time. Now, 7 years later, our information system is even older, more antiquated, and less able to meet the needs of our environment.

So, am I sad about the demise of CADDIS? Not on your life! The way CADDIS had been constructed and the problems still existing with the program after these many years was a nightmare. Staff training and implementation at the regional centers would have cost several million dollars more and been not only a source of great frustration but a diversion from the real mission of the regional centers – provision and oversight of the care of persons with developmental disabilities. There never was any “Wow!!” factor of great things the program would give back in return for all the inconvenience of conversion.

With CADDIS’s demise, we now have a chance to start afresh using all the information and ideas that were developed in the past 7 years but without trying to hang it all on a foreign framework. We already have two robust systems – Virtual Chart and SANDIS – that could serve as a beginning framework for a new solution.