We are looking for information on counties that are using and Electronic Data Management System for Social Services. What products are counties using? Do they tie in with all our programs? What benefits are you seeing? Please comment or contact me directly.
shelley.koen@mnprairie.org
R10(which includes Winona, Fillmore, Houston, Goodhue,
Wabasha and Freeborn Counties) County Income Maintenance/Child Support Units:
The Income Maintenance/Child Support Units use 2 products; Compass
Pilot by Northwoods and OnBase by Hyland. Compass Pilot
handles all the Forms creation(whether it be DHS or County Specific forms) and
scanning of paper documents, which are then automatically imported into OnBase,
our document repository system. When staff are in the process of creating
the Forms or scanning the paper documents in Compass Pilot, certain fields or
keywords on these forms and documents are automatically filled in using a daily
download of the MAXIS data from the State of MN. Such fields are the most
commonly asked fields on all Forms such as Name, Address, Phone number, SS#,
etc., which greatly decreases the amount of time it takes staff to fill out the
forms with the correct data. OnBase stores the client’s case
files. Along with storing the Case Files, OnBase also has configured a
Workflow for each case file. Depending upon what a particular clients’
needs are, certain Forms will flow to specified Work Queues and are ready for
the Income Maintenance or Child Support Staff to pick up and “work” the
document and process the documents accordingly. Winona County has
partnered with 5 other Counties named above and we store their client case
files in OnBase and their Income Maintenance/Child Support Staff also utilize
Compass Pilot and OnBase from our Servers here in Winona County. I have
reached out to our Income Maintenance/Child Support Supervisor to provide a
statement on the benefits of our EDMS System, since I work in the IT world and
don’t have the daily contact with the staff. Her comments are below:
Benefit for IM
& Child Support:
- I have
staff who work from home (not just during pandemic) and they are able to
work without any issues due to our EDMS system. They are able to access
all incoming documents and work cases as they normally would, had they
been in the office
- In
sharing an EDMS system with a handful of other counties that border us, we
don’t have to physically transfer case files between counties when clients
move.
- For DHS
audits, it is easy to locate the documents
- Less
physical storage required in agency for hard copies
- For me
as the Supervisor, I can easily track what my staff are doing as well as
answer any client questions/complaints by pulling up the documents in
EDMS. I can also track to make sure we are hitting our required processing
timelines set by DHS. Finally, I can monitor when we need overtime as well
as justify new hires due to caseload volumes and amount of processing
taking place.
- Significantly
increases productivity and also cuts processing time down
Social Services Unit in Winona County-Social Workers:
The Social Services Unit in Winona County uses Compass Pilot
and Compass Co-Pilot(iPad) for their case files. OnBase is the document
repository where their case files are stored but they don’t even realize it is
OnBase that stores them. The Social Workers just utilize Compass Pilot
and OnBase sits in the background. They create all Forms(DHS & County
specific) in Compass Pilot and any documents scanned in are scanned in thru
Compass Pilot. The Forms are auto filled in with the Client’s Name,
Address, Phone, SS#, etc. by a SSIS update that Compass Pilot gets every 30
minutes from the State of MN SSIS Server. This greatly reduces the time
to fill out forms/scanning/filling out keywords, etc. Staff are able to
retrieve a client’s case file from within Compass Pilot. Staff are able
to upload a client’s case file into the Cloud(we use Amazon Government Cloud
services) and then retrieve the case file on their iPad thru Compass Co-Pilot
during client visits at client’s houses, etc. Client visits are much
easier when the case file is on the iPad vs. physical paper file. There
is no type of Workflow associated with the Social Services side within Pilot or
OnBase, however, they do have “Tasks” assigned to them for completion of
certain items within Compass Pilot. I believe Karen Bunkowski, one of our
Social Services Supervisors, has already emailed you with the benefits and such
of Compass Pilot/Co-Pilot programs.
Hopefully the above explanations have help. Please
feel free to contact me with any other questions.
Thanks.
Lois Ekern
Winona County IT Department
EDMS Specialist
507-457-6332
________________________________________________________________________________
I worked in Marshall County for over 13 years and we used
CaseWorks up there and loved it!! Now that I am in Traverse, we have just put the
IM side on CW and will start with the SS side later this spring/early summer.
They are so attentive to what is needed and needs to change.
They are local and make programming changes so quickly if it is needed (that
was more in the early days in Marshall).
I contacted some Marshall County workers b/4 we went with
them to make sure that they are still happy with their work and the programs
and they are still just as satisfied.
I believe they are also working on a Highway and Accounting
addition……so I’m excited for those to release eventually.
CW works great for any size county/agency.
If you need anything further, I would gladly chat with you
or email back and forth if you would like.
Thanks,
Shelly Staebler, FAS/Fiscal
320-422-7776
________________________________________________________________________________
Hubbard uses Document Manager
from Information Systems Corp.
Licenses are expensive but can
use concurrent, service is great.
We have noticed an issue since
working from home. If a user just brings home their laptop (which is their
workstation), and VPNs in, they can’t access the server that Document Manger is
on. The only way they can access it is if they run a remoted desktop application.
We don’t have the capabilities of doing that right now so it isn’t
working.
We just recently had a visit
from Northwoods in Ohio. They have a couple of solutions that we are
looking at. Covid happened after their site visit so we haven’t gotten
any proposal from them yet.
Thank You,
Kathy Melvin
Information System Specialist
218-732-2408
________________________________________________________________________________
Otter Tail County is working
with Next Chapter Technology as they develop the Accounting CaseWorks Edition
(ACE). Due to the COVID crisis, they were able to fast track and we are
in a soft live as of May 1. ACE has allowed our accounting department to
work from home on most days for the past 8 weeks, allowing the sharing of
documents and viewing invoices. Electronic approval from supervisors and
the ability to process employee timesheets has been extremely helpful.
Diane Aschnewitz
Human Services Finance Manager
Fiscal Supervisor
530 W Fir Ave
Fergus Falls MN 56537
218-998-8157
________________________________________________________________________________
In Douglas County we use Compass Pilot by Northwoods. We
implemented all units at one time in January 2018. It was a huge endeavor, and
in looking back we would have staggered the implementation. But we are very
happy with the system. Took about 4 months of research to determine best
vendor, another 4 months of development with the vendor to determine taxonomy
and processes, then 3 months of onsite training and implementation.
We looked at Application Extender, CaseWorks and Northwoods
Compass for systems. They all had pros/cons. We liked the mobile solution with
Compass the best, social workers have iPads that they use in the field.
Integration with social workers was the most difficult, but 90% of them now
would not let me take their iPad back from them, they love it.
We developed an internal team to develop the taxonomy
(electronic filing system). It consisted of Office Services Supervisor (which
was me), all three Social Services Supervisors and 7 social workers (at least
one from each area --- child protection/chem dep/mental health/DD/licensing).
We ended up tweaking it before we went live as the vendor (Northwoods) guided
us in the process and our initial plan was too large to maintain. It is a sweet
spot of enough unique categories and not having each page in a separate
document type.
We were blessed with an incredible implementation team from
Northwoods. Training of staff is critical. It is a lot to learn, so let them
practice and play around before you go live. We had staff scan 20 of their
files, then Office Support scanned the rest of the active files. Archive files
are still being scanned as time permits. Management needs to be highly involved
and supportive.
If you want to connect via phone, I am happy to provide
additional information.
Thanks!
Tresa Schmidt
Assistant Director
320.762.3846
Douglas County Social Services
809 Elm Street, Suite 1186
Alexandria, MN 56308
320.762.3833 Fax
________________________________________________________________________________
For the
programs I supervise we use Northwood’s product which I believe is built on the
EDMS platform (the technical wording and technology are beyond me,
sorry). The programs I supervise in this system are: CAC, CADI, DD and BI
waives; Rule 185; FSG; CSG; and Adult Mental Health.
The initial
set up to the system was a bit complicated; however, it has been worth
it. A crisis like COVID 19 and suddenly all your staff working off-site
has helped us all further realize how well our work is supported by NOT having
paper files. Staff have run into very few barriers by suddenly needing to
work off site as the information they need is available to them via the
electronic file.
The
Northwood’s system has 2 parts: Pilot and Co-pilot. Pilot is the desktop
version and has everything you need access to: forms to be used as well as case
files. Co-pilot is your portable desk in theory. Co-pilot is on our ipads and
is the version you take in the field with you to get forms signed by clients,
to see client related documents, etc.
Some documents
can be set up to auto fill common information such as name, address, etc as
long as that information is accurate in SSIS, as this information pulls in from
SSIS for your identified cases.
The programs
not really do other interfacing with SSIS or other commonly used programs
though to my knowledge.
Our staff
using PH-Doc found the Northwood’s product to not be as beneficial to them so I
would caution jumping in too fast for this group. I would advise more
careful analysis of possible pros and cons first before purchasing this product
and needed equipment for those currently using Ph-Doc.
If you have
other questions, I’d be happy to try to reply to those to the best of my
ability.
Karen
L. Bunkowski- Supervisor
Winona
County Health and Human Services
202
West Third Street
Winona
MN 55987
(507)
457-6264-phone
(507)
454-9381-fax
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