Learn how a leader in social services improved service delivery through data-driven decision-making.
About Access Services and Children and Children and Family Services
Access Services, Inc. is a leader in social services, including Children and Family Services (CFS) for which they employ social and other care workers across eight programs. In addition to CFS, Access offers a variety of programs in three additional services lines, Behavioral Health (BH), Housing and Homeless Services (HH), and Intellectual Disabilities and Autism Services (ID/A).
With over two dozen services across four services lines, Access needed a robust Electronic Health Records (EHR) solution. Their EHR implementation was rolled out one service line at a time, with CFS as the last service line to experience the transformation.
The Challenge
Under their existing process, CFS staff used inconsistent documentation and processes across programs to record their treatment plans, capture their session notes, process billing, and so on. These disparate methods across programs and staff made it nearly impossible to collect quality data on metrics such as billing. The inconsistency also made it more challenging to shift staff from one program to another because there was a need for re-training even when the job was similar to what they were doing in another CFS program.
Experience Growth in Your Company Through EHR Optimization
For Access to have access to quality data and reporting, they needed to complete CFS’s EHR implementation to bring all programs under the same, consistent system as the other three service lines. First, this required uncovering the different ways staff across eight CFS programs were documenting and reporting their work. Then, they needed to develop consistent processes that would work with the EHR across CFS, as well as their other three service lines.
Plus, there was a learning curve for the staff within CFS who were unfamiliar with electronic health records. As staff whose training and expertise are within social services, there was no real framework for considering how the EHR would work for their programs.
The Solution
What proved to be instrumental in the successful EHR implementation at Access Services within CFS was enkompas Technology Solutions’ ability to, ‘Deliver the solution we could imagine.’ enkompas acted as technology interpreters who translated EHR technology into the language of Access Services, helping its leadership and staff map out implementation and adoption plans.
enkompas partnered with Access by implementing their Organizational Change Management (OCM) blueprint as part of the first phase of any transformational EHR initiative. Our OCM process allowed CFS staff to get clarity on what their processes looked like “before” and then translate them into how they would work “after” – once the EHR was implemented and staff learned to adopt it.
Finalizing this third EHR rollout to the CFS line, gave Access Services consistent, electronic records across their entire organization and higher quality data for reporting and decision-making. Becoming a truly data-driven organization accrues a host of benefits for agencies, including improved client outcomes, fewer billing errors, increased cash flow, better hiring decisions, less staff turnover, and higher revenues.
Access has started to realize these benefits, experiencing noticeable improvements across leadership and staff. Here are the areas of improvement Access reports experiencing since enkompas helped translate their work into an EHR.
Service Delivery Results from EHR Implementation:
- Consistent, documented processes: enkompas-led organizational change management (OCM) resulted in fast-paced improvement that everyone could see. This included documenting existing processes and then streamlining them to EHR processes that more efficiently worked for Access.
- Better case records: Direct care and other staff members confidently engage with the EHR and their supervisors report their session notes are now more thorough and timely.
- Billing efficiencies: Almost all CFS billing was completed manually before EHR implementation. Now, nearly 100% of billing is done through the health record, improving timeliness and consistency.
- Quality metrics and reporting: Before EHR implementation, Access had few quality metrics and what they did have was limited and otherwise low-quality data. Access now has accessible, understandable data reflecting what they need to measure for regulatory compliance and decision-making. Having access to real-time data allows them to enforce regulation and accountability within Access.
Personnel-Related EHR Implementation Outcomes:
- Better hiring decisions: OCM and the EHR implementation led to a quality process for hiring. All new hires are skills-tested to ensure they can demonstrate their job-related competencies.
- Internal experts: Super-users – Access leaders and staff learned to become masters of their new EHR through train-the-trainer sessions. These super-users become champions of EHR who effectively onboard new employees and help when staff have difficulties.
- Consistent onboarding: New staff complete a uniform process when they begin working for Access, which has led to more dependable delivery of the services they provide.
Summary
Access Services, Inc.’s EHR implementation, facilitated by enkompas Technology Solutions, has transformed their service delivery, ensuring consistency, efficiency, and improved data-driven decision-making across their organization. The success stories in service delivery and personnel-related outcomes underscore the positive impact of a well-executed EHR implementation.
For more information on how enkompas Technology Solutions can help your organization achieve similar success, please visit our services page.
