The MES ecosystem has adopted product language while remaining organized around specific systems or solutions. Modules are called products. Platforms are called products. Certification tracks product lifecycles. But the product of a Medicaid enterprise is not software. The product is the service a person receives: preventative medical care, transportation to receive that care, life-saving medication provided consistently on schedule. Systems and capabilities are inventory in service of that product, and inventory is a cost to minimize, not an asset to accumulate.
This is not a semantic preference. When systems are the product, investment optimizes for system health, roadmaps fill with system milestones, and success means the system shipped. When services are the product, investment optimizes for outcomes people experience, and systems earn their place by improving those outcomes or get replaced. I recommend the standards program adopt service-level outcome measures as its north star metrics and treat every system-level measure as subordinate diagnostics. The linked essay develops this argument in full.