With any new year comes new possibilities for your organization. Why not make one of those new initiatives a software upgrade? You may not know exactly how to do that or what options are out there. Here are three ways to upgrade your organization’s technology in 2019.
Training
Training is a slippery thing. It’s hard to keep track of exactly which pieces of training exist and who has completed what, especially in a large organization. Are you manually tracking these things? If so, that must take a lot of time and effort. If you’re using some technology to help you, is it effective? Do you have an alert system put in place so you will know when a direct support professional training is coming due? Are you piecing together different systems for training and tracking? Software training systems now are built to prevent things from falling through the cracks. They have the capability of training online, or for those courses that need to be face to face, training modules can send employees a calendar with a link to register for the face to face course. This can be great for organizations that require their employees to complete things like CPR & First Aid training. Testing can occur within the online system. The system can also provide scoring and certifications. The software can also be a hub for training videos, which can be customized by the agency. If you have existing videos, you can upload them into the software systems. Certain software providers even have teams that can film new videos for you, based on your agency’s needs. No matter how each video is made, be sure to ask yourself if they can all be viewed in multiple languages including closed-captioning.
Scheduling
Scheduling can also be something that is hard to nail down manually. It can be hard to figure out how many employees your organization needs for specific shifts and who is free when. And then what do you do when an employee requests time off? Or calls in sick? Those can both be a nightmare. If specific pieces of training or certifications are required to do each job, you will need to make sure that the person filling in is up to date on their training certifications for that particular individual that is being served. Computer programs are much more sophisticated these days. Here are some questions to keep in mind when evaluating your organization’s scheduling system:
1. Does your software system take into account if the caregiver is fully certified to work with an individual?
Keeping your agency in full compliance is important, so if your organization’s software does not do that, it may be time for an upgrade.
2. Does the software system take into account the possible ratios of direct support professionals to individuals being served for compliance and safety?
If not, it may be a good idea to look at other options?
3. Can employees shift swap or show their availability?
If your organization is spending an absurd amount of time on scheduling, adding this feature may save you a lot of time.
4. Is the system accessible to view on different devices so one can view from home or on the go?
One way to make things easier for management is to make things easier for employees. If employees are constantly running late or not showing up to shifts, it might be because the software you’re using is not user-friendly.
EVV (21st Century Cures Act)
By now, you have probably heard of EVV (Electronic Visit Verification), especially if your organization provides direct support to individuals. Because of EVV, the time of manual entries/timecards has passed. However, if your company uses an electronic timecards system, it may still be impossible to track if fraudulent activities were occurring. This is because piecing together multiple different systems can cause significant gaps or errors. If your organization has not been tracking employee visits electronically, or if your organization has not been tracking employee visits at all, this would be a great area to upgrade as it will soon be mandated by the government.So what should you do? It is still open because the mandate is not effective yet. Each state has been making different decisions on which model to choose/implement. Key stakeholders have had meetings and shared their input. If you have the time and resources ready now, it would be a good idea to get ahead of the game and implement a system now. Doing this can help you avoid possible sanctions for non-compliance for the upcoming mandate, which will go into effect in January 2020.
Now What?
Technology is always changing. Although it can be a pain sometimes, especially when new laws come into effect, pain is never the goal. The goal of software systems is to create more efficient processes within your organization. This is so you and your team can spend less time maintaining trainings, creating schedules, and verifying visits, and more time doing the things that are meaningful to you and your customers. If your organization provides direct support to individuals, make sure you pick a software company that understands the intricacies of the human services industry, like DCI. Schedule a demo today.
