State officials said today they plan to soon start using data analytics to detect and prevent Medicaid fraud.

The program, announced by Gov. Mark Dayton, will comb through data to find fraud in other programs, too, such as workers’ compensation, unemployment, procurement and taxes. It can also improve management of such state assets as buildings and fleet management; and to find better value for taxpayer dollars, including strategic planning and data quality analysis, officials said.

The Department of Revenue already uses analytic tools to improve the tax compliance audits.

A request for proposals has been issued to see how firms can provide data analytics tools and services to help with the other state government programs. Payment could be based on savings achieved or costs recovered.