How do you keep accurate staff time records when the data lives in two disconnected systems? This case study shows how custom business process automation software brought time tracking and reporting together for a statewide behavioral health provider.
At a glance:
- Labor reduction
- Error reduction
- Accessibility improvements
- Business insights
Client: Not-for-profit organization – behavioral health / social work
Problem
Our client delivers behavioral health services throughout the state and depends heavily on an online EHR application to manage their Electronic Health Records. The EHR tracked clinical and consumer contact time, but it did not capture non-consumer-contact time — leaving gaps in staff time accounting.
To fill that gap, the client relied on a legacy application to collect and report on both consumer contact and non-contact time. The old application produced the reports they needed, but field staff couldn’t access it. Each region improvised its own workaround with varying degrees of success: staff recorded their time in whatever format was at hand and passed the data to an administrative staffer, who re-keyed it into the legacy platform to generate the required reporting.
There was also no sync between the EHR and the time tracking system, so time was sometimes double-recorded and sometimes missing entirely. Inconsistent data between the two systems — plus the ever-present risk of transposition errors — was a serious problem, because this information (1) helped the organization evaluate staff efficiency and (2) had to be submitted to the state to satisfy contractual obligations.
Over time, the legacy application exhausted the limitations of MS Access, and performance became an issue.
Solution
We developed custom BPA (Business Process Automation) software that interfaces with the client’s web-based behavioral health EHR system to track time for in-field social workers through a user-friendly web application. The software also supports additional time recording, which is consolidated into internal staff efficiency reporting and used to generate the reports required by the state.
Results / Outcomes
- Labor reduction – Eliminated the need to re-enter data from one system into another
- Business insights – Delivered improved reporting and visual aids to demonstrate performance
- Accessibility – Made data readily available from anywhere with an internet connection
- Reduction in errors – Ensured all data from the EHR was accounted for and held staff accountable to their time requirements, keeping time records accurate
Capabilities Demonstrated
- Business Process Improvement
- Business Process Improvement Assessment
- Business Process Automation (BPA) software development
- Legacy software modernization
- Legacy software support
- Legacy software assessment
- Web App Development
- Software integration
- Business Intelligence
- Web Portal Development
- Data accessibility – Staff can now log their time and review upcoming and past schedules in real time from any mobile device
- Disjoined data – From a reporting standpoint, the complete data set now lives in the new system, which uses an advanced import algorithm to connect related data and minimize duplication wherever possible
- Mobile interface
- Cloud migration
- Cloud-based application development
Overview
The software has two main components: the web application and the EHR Import application.
Web Application
A mobile-responsive web application that gives in-field staff the ability to:
- schedule appointments,
- log time,
- review performance metrics,
- receive alerts about problems (missing time for a day, missing time for an appointment, and so on).
Supervisors can:
- easily track their team’s performance,
- view historic and estimated future billable time (the organization is able to bill Medicaid for certain services),
- and review staff efficiency.
EHR Import Application
The system imports data from the EHR and accurately relates each time entry to the proper staff member, service, program, and contract — removing the need for manual data re-entry.
Features
- 3rd party software integration
- AWS Elastic Beanstalk for web app deployment and hosting
- Crystal Reports – automated report generation
- Staff and supervisor email alerts for time anomalies (missing or duplicate time entries)
Technologies
- C#.Net
- Entity Framework
- Microsoft SQL Server
- AWS Elastic Beanstalk (cloud)
- AWS RDS (cloud)
- Bootstrap
- JQuery
- HTML
- Crystal Reports