At DSHS, our House of Health and Human Services priorities drive our agency’s Strategic Plan goals. This page highlights DSHS – Office of the Secretary strategic goals, action plans and success measures.
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In the strategic planning process, we identify three key components.
- The Strategic Goal: Sets the goal that we are striving to achieve.
- The Action Plan: Our action strategies to get there.
- The Success Measure: The outcome to achieve a goal.
Read about the components of DSHS - Office of the Secretary's strategic goals. Strategic Plan Metrics coming soon.
Strategic plan index: Jump to a section of the plan by clicking the Strategic Goal (SG)
- Advance economic well-being by ensuring all people in Washington have their foundational needs met.
- Advance innovation in service delivery to amplify impact, ensure compliance and increase effectiveness.
- Strengthen organizational resilience by cultivating a skilled, adaptable, and supported workforce.
- Enhance customer experience by fostering collaboration and partnership.
Strategic Goal #1: Advance economic well-being by ensuring all people in Washington have their foundational needs met.
The Action Plan:
- Increase enterprise-wide knowledge, understanding, and use of economic well-being and the Self-Sufficiency Standard in DSHS.
- Establish plans to increase the number and percent of Washingtonians at or above the Self-Sufficiency Standard.
- Integrate Economic Justice Alliance (EJA) research, policy, community, and lived expertise into agency strategic planning and decision-making.
- Support federal outreach and influence to promote economic well-being as a national priority.
Success Measure:
- 1.1: Increase in positive responses to “I see my work as contributing to building economic well-being.” in Employee Survey by 3% year over year from baseline starting in 2026.
- 1.2: All programmatic divisions use the Self-Sufficiency Standard to complete an analysis of options to increase clients’ self-sufficiency rate from established baselines by 2027.
- 1.3: EJA team provides an annual review of budget and policy requests impacting the state’s 10-Year Plan starting in 2027 legislative session.
- 1.4: DSHS executive leadership consults with the Advisory Council twice a year, at a minimum, starting in 2026.
- 1.5: EJA Team annually leads or contributes to at least 4-6 briefings, policy consultations, or contributions related to federal policy affecting the department, state, and national level, starting in 2026.
Strategic Goal #2: Advance innovation in service delivery to amplify impact, ensure compliance and increase effectiveness.
The Action Plan:
- Foster innovation through strategic planning, continuous improvement, visual communication, organizational change, and staff engagement.
- Ensure effective service delivery through strategic leadership, expert consultation, and streamlined processes—targeting confidentiality, fraud prevention, and accountability.
- Advance organizational compliance by investing in technology to modernize audit and risk systems.
- Enhance service delivery by building capacity, improving fairness and removing barriers in systems and processes.
Success Measure:
- 2.1: Office of Innovation, Strategy and Visual Communications (OISVC) will increase internal and external client satisfaction quality rate for annual brand survey from 3.8/5 in June 2024 to 4.0/5 by June 2027.
- 2.2: Office of Information Governance will maintain the number of confidentiality breaches to 30 or less each calendar year for years 2025, 2026, 2027.
- 2.3: The Office of Fraud and Accountability will increase the dollar amount of identified overpayments per quarter from $900,000 to $1,250,000 by fiscal year 2027.
- 2.4: Internal Audit will achieve an increased efficiency for audit processes by 10% two years from the date of purchase of a new Internal Audit Software.
- 2.5: Enterprise Risk Management Office will achieve a 50% reduction in repeat Safety and Health Assessment findings by July 2027.
- 2.6: Develop and fully implement three agency-wide efficiency tools for improving fairness, removing barriers, and increasing accountability in customer service delivery by June 30, 2027.
Strategic Goal #3: Strengthen organizational resilience by cultivating a skilled, adaptable, and supported workforce.
The Action Plan:
- Strengthen organizational resilience by advancing Emergency Management, DSHS policies, and patient rights through training programs, and increased awareness.
- Support a skilled workforce by providing ongoing education for staff working with Tribes and Urban Indian Organizations.
- Advance a resilient and adaptable workforce by transitioning to a skill-based hiring model that prioritizes competencies.
- Empower supervisors and staff through customer-focused Human Resource services that offer innovative tools, clear communication, and targeted training.
- Advance a skilled workforce by investing in employees through targeted communication to increase effectiveness of customer service.
Success Measure:
- 3.1: Office of Emergency Management will staff, train, and resource three incident management teams by June 2027.
- 3.2: Ombuds Office will train new employees in patient rights and American Disabilities Act compliance at all state run 24/7 secured psychiatric facilities through July 2027.
- 3.3: Office of Indian Policy will provide DSHS Administrative Policy 7.01 Training to 100% of new and existing staff working with tribes through June 30, 2027.
- 3.4: Human Resources Division will update job classifications by replacing degree and year requirements with clearly defined competencies by December 2025.
- 3.5 Human Resources Division will maintain traffic at 20% or greater the customer-facing HR SharePoint site with quality site visits averaging at least 2 minutes by June 2027.
- 3.6: Increase the number of employee certified interpreters by 15% by June 30, 2027.
Strategic Goal #4: Enhance customer experience by fostering collaboration and partnership.
The Action Plan:
- Amplify DSHS customer experience by investing in communication processes and strategies—targeting DSHS policies, patient rights, and public disclosure.
- Elevate customer experience by establishing a centralized Investigations Unit with clear, coordinated processes.
- Foster collaboration with internal and external partners by delivering timely, high-quality communication about DSHS programs and services.
- Strengthen relationships and advance shared priorities by partnering with Tribes, Urban Indian Organizations, and state agencies.
- Advance customer experience through workforce and community collaboration to align and sustain access strategies.
Success Measure:
- 4.1: The Rules and Policies Assistance Unit (RPAU) will increase the percentage of current Department administrative policies from 85% to 90% by March 1, 2026, and to 95% by March 1, 2027.
- 4.2: Office of Information Governance will maintain the number of 5-day letters sent on time at 95% or more by July 2027.
- 4.3: Human Resources Division will reduce average investigation timeframe to 120 days or less by October 2027.
- 4.4: Office of Communications and Government Affairs will increase monthly Facebook and Instagram content interactions by 4.5%, from 1,435 (six-month average Jan.-June 2025) to 1,500 by July 2027.
- 4.5: The Office of Indian Policy will attend/support 100% of Tribal/State Agency collaborative efforts, activities, meetings and Tribal Consultations through June 30, 2027.
- 4.6: Develop and implement a coordinating council comprised of community members and DSHS employees by January 31, 2026.