VOA | CHALLENGES

Faced with the end of the runway for their paper based and small platform solutions, the Northern California and Northern Nevada affiliate of Volunteers of America (VOA NCNN) lacked visibility into information and statuses for its 48 programs, including housing, employment services, substance abuse and recovery services to families, individuals, veterans, seniors, and youth.

Staff had been doing an inordinate amount of paperwork, offices were piled with file folders and paper forms; case managers kept handwritten case notes and files, and management and staff across the organization, from the clinics to the billing and finance teams, lacked immediate visibility into data.

SOLUTION

After conferring with regional peers at VOA sister organizations and doing their own research, VOA NCNN chose Qualifacts and its Credible Behavioral Health Electronic Health Record as its integrated solution. Decision criteria included the need for an enterprise-level solution with a proven implementation methodology, California and Federal compliance support for the future and the present, including Medi-Cal, billing support for a range of requirements and payers, and self-managed tools for updates and expansions.

“As a leadership team, we wanted our EHR solution to reflect and support our triangle of strengths – clinical, technical, and financial,” said Pat Fitzgerald, VOA NCNN’s Liaison to the Department of Human Assistance. “

IMPLEMENTATION SUCCESS

“The Credible implementation team was there for us throughout the process,” Fitzgerald said. “When we knew how we wanted the workflows to go, they followed our lead, and when we wanted guidance from them they offered it. They organized our cadences so that we had 1:1 meetings, team meetings, and group meetings as needed throughout the project. Our strong ideas, and our team’s work ethic meshed well with the Credible team. We knew we were going to succeed.”

“We were successful in implementing the Credible solution because of the flexibility of the platform, because we had a clear understanding of what we wanted Credible to do for us, and because of the partnership with the Credible team,” said Ar Lao, Accounting Manager for VOA NCNN.

EFFICIENCY SUCCESS

“Converting from paper based record keeping, we are moving from having rooms filled with filing cabinets to a digital system that can house our information in ways that an authorized user can reach it from the office or the field,” Fitzgerald said. “Speaking with our sister organizations, we can already see how much time we will be saving in the future, just by being able to input, access, and analyze data when we need to.”

CLINICAL SUCCESS INTEGRATED WITH BILLING SUCCESS

“Clinical documentation is faster and easier for providers now, with Credible giving them the ability to tie diagnoses, documentation, and problem lists together into the treatment plan,” said  Chris Stanwick, VOA NCNN Program Manager of Residential Programs. “Working with the Credible team, we built out the connections between clinical programs and the billing matrix so that those pieces happen behind the scenes, automatically, and we have visibility into residiential availability, using the Bed Board tools.

MOBILE AND FIELD SERVICES SUCCESS

“We can meet our clients in the field now with the Credible mobile solution, instead of with paper forms, and we meet them anywhere they are — at their home, at the park, anywhere in the field,” Lao said. “Being paperless, we are no longer having to go back to the office and scan paper or do data entry.”

STAFF SATISFACTION SUCCESS

“Coming from paper records, we were naturally concerned before we launched that there would be adoption challenges, and that there would be staff apprehensiveness at the scale of the change,” Fitzgerald said. “To our delight, once people got into the system and started seeing how it’s been laid out, and that things are done in ways that make sense to them, we’ve been getting nothing but compliments and happiness all around.”

ABOUT VOA OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA AND NORTHERN NEVADA

Founded locally in 1911, the Northern California & Northern Nevada affiliate of Volunteers of America (VOA NCNN) is one of the largest providers of social services in the region, operating more than 40 programs including housing, employment services, substance abuse and recovery services to families, individuals, veterans, seniors, and youth. VOA NCNN provides shelter or housing to over 3,500 men, women and children every night. Nationally, Volunteers of America helps more than 2.5 million people annually in more than 400 communities.

ABOUT QUALIFACTS

Qualifacts is one of the largest behavioral health and human services EHR vendors in the country. Its mission is to partner with customers to support and extend their ability to deliver quality care and improve the lives of the clients they serve. With more than 20 years of experience its products and services help customers achieve interoperability goals, optimize efficiency, improve productivity, and maximize reimbursement. The company offers several EHRs – CareLogic, Credible and InSync – while collaborating to build an even brighter future for partner agencies and their clients.