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HN499 Unit 6 Assignment

Kaplan University

HN499 Unit 6 Assignment

I am the director of aging services for my local government. Even though the aging services employees do not work for the state, the state funds most of our budget, so we are obligated to closely conform to their wishes. When the state audited us to decide on whether or not they would continue to fund us, they concluded that we were falling short in our ability to help those most in need. The issue was that we were not adequately connecting the neediest of people and families with additional and or supplementary services in our community. After their audit we did our own independent study. We found that many of the different agencies that serve our community were using a variety of methods to collect intake information, and the required information that was gathered was far from uniform. Finally after examining this information and gathering surveys on the complaints and concerns of our clientele, we discovered that they were having to spend half of their day to apply for services; each and every place that they went to for assistance. We also uncovered that the majority of them did not have reliable transportation and were having a difficult time getting to and from their appointments, while follow-up appointments had an even worse attendance rate. Excellent introduction

Since I have been working in the community for nearly 20 years, I already know many of the different organization heads from the Department of Employment Security, the various soup kitchens, the Department of Health, the Division of Motor Vehicles, the Food Stamp office, night time shelters, the library, HUD-VASH, Alcoholics Anonymous, and Narcotics Anonymous, the Department of Mental Health, Ticket to work, etc. Because of this I will set up a meeting in the near future with them to explore some creative ways to facilitate client care between our many different types of agencies. Great

Due to today’s negative economy, there is a record amount of people applying for and receiving services throughout the United States and in particular, our county. In order to help service agencies survive the financial cutbacks and the financial strain of supplying an increased amount of services to the public, they need to become more efficient. Because of this, I will bring up the idea of setting up a co-op computer software program that will help to provide efficiency, standardize and streamline the intake procedure for everyone so that we can all log into the same system and eliminate having to gather duplicate information. The same information on each client will be available to all the agencies that are connected into the system. By doing this, more time can be spent actually helping clients rather than collecting, name, address, phone, income, etc. over and over again. Advancements in technology have jumped leaps and bounds in the perfection of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. Microsoft has specifically designed Customer Relationship Management software to bring about and improve better connections between service agencies. When used in conjunction with a good computer networking system, any agency that is logged onto it should be able to accurately, efficiently and quickly access client information. It will specifically do the following, “1. Tear down walls between agencies. 2. Go broad, not deep. 3. Gain a 360-degree view of the client. 4. Empower case managers with the ability to customize. 5. Ensure management has a view into daily activities and overall progress. 6. Integrate with existing applications. 7. Improve case manager effectiveness with efficient activity tracking. 8. Make it easy to navigate. 9. Make it scalable for changing client needs. 10. Deliver knowledge driven health and social services from a connected knowledge base” (MS CRM 2007, p.4). These are just the highlights; the software is truly far more complex. Excellent plan!

There are a few obstacles that I see in the way of bringing this type of software to all of the various agencies. Some of the agencies in town are fiercely independent and even secretive. I know that the Battered Women’s Shelter guards their client’s information far beyond what the law requires so that they can keep their clients anonymous and safe. Because of this, maybe there is a way to use a code rather than a name or birth date to identify their clients. HIPAA is another concern because of all the training and recertification that has to be done on a yearly basis. The way to possibly make this work would be to agree on a single trainer who can go from one service site to the next. Finally, some of the area service agencies are bound by specific laws which may make using a part of or all of this intergraded software impossible. Managing this and then overseeing it will take some serious coordination. Another issue is the different church food banks. Many of the churches want to only open up their bank to the parishioners of their church. Because of this, maybe there can be local food drives where food is then donated to the church food banks after the drives are complete. This way they will be getting food from sources other than their own people and may feel more comfortable supplying food to whoever comes along. Anyhow, along with the human touch, this software should hopefully help in solving the technological side of this issue. Wonderful ideas and suggestions

Going deeper and organizing the human side of this issue is another important way that I can help to provide efficiency while streamline the intake process. The first step would be to set up and practice better verbal and written communications between agencies. It would also help the agencies to work more hand in hand with each other. With improved communication, an exact listing of who does what for their clients and for what reason can be written up and distributed between all of the different community agencies. That list will help to show where there are duplications of services and or a lack of services being performed in the community. My idea is to form something similar to a “Board of Directors” by having someone from each agency sit on the board. In doing this, we can get together four times a year to discuss the pros and cons of everything that is taking place in our own individual agencies as well as the agencies as a group. Many agencies are overwhelmed so meeting four times a year may not be to the liking of everyone. To overcome this, we will keep the main meeting to a three hour morning period and then continue on for an additional three hour afternoon period for those who are seeking more advice and assistance, or for those who are willing to give it. Great!

This human side of the equation will also be necessary in assisting the area’s clients with adequate transportation to and from services, as well as in-between them. With money being tight for everyone, this will be a very difficult project to get off the ground and finance properly. My idea is to apply for grant money and then purchase six half-sized tour type busses to run a schedule between agencies that are different on a daily basis. Every Monday the busses will take one route, Tuesdays will be a second, and Wednesday will be a third with Thursday and Friday each repeating the most used routes. Over and over, week by week the routes will remain the same and their schedules will be posted in every advocacy service to take advantage of. With six busses running routes, most of the county will be covered. The main problem that I see with this system is the cost of labor (the drivers). In order to avoid this, there will be only one paid administrator who also doubles as a driver. The remaining five busses will be driven by a group of volunteers who will undergo the proper training and obtain the proper licenses to drive such a vehicle. Finally, even if the busses are able to run perfect schedules, there is also the obstacle of getting people to take time off from work during the hours that the service agencies are open. Many of them work minimum wage jobs and do not have personal time to take off for such activities. Hopefully a highly visible advertising campaign directed towards the members of the Chamber of Commerce and other area businesses will help employers to see the benefits behind their workers taking off an occasional morning or afternoon to get their houses in order. Innovative ideas

In conclusion, we have looked at some creative ways to facilitate good care for clients between the many agencies of our community. Should they be adopted, we now have a way to streamline the intake sessions and reduce the hours spent gathering redundant information. The Microsoft program that I have suggested has been out since 2007 and most if not all the bugs have been worked out of it. We discussed the importance of training everyone involved in the process and sharing information responsibly. Then there were ways to encourage area churches and other organizations to share their resources, and forming a Board of Directors to coordinate and oversee the whole process. Finally I believe that we can solve the majority of transportation issues by purchasing six half tour busses and operating them with a volunteer team of local people after they have been properly trained. Together with all of the area services, I’m certain that we can coordinate a system that will make the Federal and State governments that are funding us happy.

References

Microsoft Corporation (2007), Using CRM to Coordinate Cases Across Social Service Agencies, Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:2hCNsVNYeWYJ:download.microsoft.com/download/b/b/8/bb851e1d-e3b3-459d-87e2-e3a12c194467/HealthandSocSrvs-UsingCRMtoCoordinateCases_WhitePaper.pdf+&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjKrGzi_soe6bQMIPTdqgKlCW8yWjKbA_IXDiWmcQLU9inFV7aqU-yQ-xa-LXSakpZt-too2dhbr0NqxjbZmoD5AxNkpBCk2Wv0c3x9wJ55e9Hyoxj5tnLuvgF-DdCo6PeU09Ab&sig=AHIEtbRMG6r9IR2f2EdLTDjzHMJbdbt4lg

This is an excellent community services coordination plan! It is extremely well written, well researched, specific, comprehensive, innovative and full of best practices and creative ways to streamline the intake process and coordinate care among multiple agencies. Please also see my enthusiastic comments in the above paper. Thank you, Dr. Love

Unit 6 Assignment - Grading Criteria	% - Points
Course Content   Complete a Community Services Coordination Plan that consists of the following:
A discussion of some of typical obstacles that interfere with the clients’ ability to access services across agencies.	0-25	25
A discussion of some of the creative ways to facilitate client care between many different types of agencies (e.g., food bank, mental health agency, welfare to work).	0-35	35
Suggestions for helping agencies to streamline the intake process. Also, an explanation of the ways to facilitate access to services by eliminating some of the intake procedures.	0-35	35
An explanation of how this plan can help to eliminate the obstacles to accessing services at different agencies.	0-25	25
Writing
Structure: Writing is clear and accurate reflecting a professional tone.	0-15	15
Mechanics: Uses correct grammar, spelling, punctuation, and APA format. Free of typographical errors.	0-15	15
Total	150	150