Allison's Blog

There are a lot of dead cool applications out there for your iPad. Some are very useful, productive and noteworthy. Some are just cool vampire-killing or molecular bouncing or definition-defying fun (Uzu).

Here are my favorite so far:

1. Instapaper allows you to mark blogs, articles, and anything you want to read later and syncs it on your Mac and iPad…it is like a newsreader but better.

2. Kindle for iPad lets me read books I purchased for my Kindle from Amazon right on my iPad (or Android, Blackberry, or iPhone). Given that the Kindle is getting pounded by iPad, they are working hard at becoming the best ebook seller with the most usable platform. And it may be working.

3. New York Times Editors’ Choice selects their noteworthy articles (including great pictures) and sends them to you daily. For free. ‘Nuff said.

4. Pulse News Reader lets me follow my favorite news suppliers and displays them with a great graphic interface that makes it easy to sort and browse. Much nicer than a simple newsfeed.

5. Speaking of news, the NPR application is equally awesome for those NPR nerds among us.

6. Pages, Apple’s version of MS Word, which was customized to work with iPad allows me to create documents, PDFs and such very easily. Handier with the Bluetooth keyboard, however, as the on-screen keyboard is not ideal for lengthy writing sessions.

7. Draft by 37 Signals is a simple application that allows me sketch and doodle out ideas. This also allows you to email the sketches and dump them into Campfire. Very nice.

8. Dropbox is a storage solution that creates a local folder on your PC or Mac that syncs to an online account, making your material accessible from anywhere–including your iPad if you left your laptop behind.

9. Guardian Eyewitness brings you daily photos from around the world. Some of which are truly breathtaking.

10. Brushes lets you sketch, draw, paint and work with photos on your iPad. For the artist in you, this is a great application…

Allison

Mary from Downstown sent me a picture of her pug, Angus. They live in California. Think we may need a play date sometime soon.

Many agencies have asked to share medical information between day and residential sites. There are several options: creating an individually-based system, creating view-only roles allowing the staff to search and view material from the other program, or create a dynamic program called Health Tracking, which will allow entry from all staff involved, presenting a complete picture of the person throughout any given day.

Be reminded that you do not need to do this for an entirety of an agency, but for consistency’s sake, you may want to include all individuals and programs. Many agencies also do elect to simply construct this for programs that share individuals.

The images within this example include two programs: Hawthorne Avenue, the residential site, and Portland Wood Works, the employment site, that will be entering data on shared supported individuals.

First: Create a Health Tracking (HT) Program

Click on CREATE NEW PROGRAM and entitle it “Health Tracking.” You will want a site with which to attach it and if you have not already done so, you may need to first create a site that corresponds to your central office. So, the site may be “Community Options, Inc.” and the program will be “Health Tracking.”

When done entering the program information, click on SAVE AND ADD INDIVIDUAL(S). You may hold down the Control (Ctrl) key and select numerous folks from the list and then click NEXT. On the next screen, click the ADD INDIVIDUAL(S) TO PROGRAM button.

Second: Create Some Caseloads

You will ultimately create three caseloads of the PROGRAM-INDIVIDUAL type. First, create a caseload that includes the individuals shared between the programs.

Click on CREATE NEW CASELOAD, click on the PROGRAM-INDIVIDUAL button on the top left. Select the Health Tracking program from the program drop down list.

Click on the ADD link to the right of the shared individuals. Type the name of the caseload in the box above your chosen individuals and ensure you will remember what the title means when you go back to assign privileges. I would also suggest giving the same prefix to all the caseloads so that they are listed together in the caseload list. For example, this caseload is called: HT/HAWTHORNE & PWW as it contains the individuals shared between the programs.

You will do the same thing for the rest of the individuals in each respective program. So, there should be a caseload that contains any individuals in the home not shared with the day services program (i.e., HT/HAWTHORNE). There will also be a third caseload for any individuals in the day program not shared with the home (i.e., HT/PWW).

The need for caseloads obviously is dictated by the program. If there are no extra people who are not shared, you will not need the secondary program-based caseload.

Third: Edit/Create Super Roles

General Direct Support super role

If you are doing this agency-wide, then you can simply remove any HT privileges from their existing super role. If you are doing this with only a certain set of staff, you will need to create a direct support role for only these staff without HT privileges. Dependent on this, make the necessary change.

HT Share super role

Create a role with HT privileges only. Above    is  a typical configuration for a direct support staff member.

Name the super role something that makes sense to you, as the provider administrator; mine was called HT SHARE.

Fourth: Assign User Privileges

Click on USER PRIVILEGE in the ACCESS CONTROL box on your provider administrator FirstPage.

For the residential staff, they should have the direct support super role and their current caseload. You will need to add the HT SHARE super role and two other caseloads: the one that contains shared individuals and the one that contains their other residents who are not shared (if this was needed).

You will do the same for the day program staff.

This will complete the process. Reports can now be run based on the Health Tracking program alone without the need to view information under the guise of both day and residential sites.

Allison

Tomorrow is Archie’s seventh birthday. As you can see, he is healthy, happy and stealing Mom’s iPad to play games and buy things on PetSmart. For those of you who heard–the dental bill is finally paid.

How did seven years go by so fast?? Anyone know??

Happy Birthday, Archie. Only sixty more to go.

Allison

Albertina Kerr.

is.

AWESOME!

Today was the first day of (many days) of training for their senior management and clinical staff. We held two sizable three-hour sessions and they were really an excellent group of people. I’m looking forward to my travels around Oregon as each area gets ready to go live with Therap. The first area to go live will be Marion County (Therap’s oldest stomping grounds down in Salem) and their training begins Monday.

Myra Lavenue is the Training Coordinator responsible for coordinating all the training schedules and locations throughout Oregon…which is like the whole UNIVERSE. For real. (Albertina Kerr is a big GYNORMOUS provider…) so kudos to her at rounding everyone up.

Here we go…

Allison

I wanted to share this because we often discuss the benefits of technology and this is just so darn cool.

Allison

Our recent update made some changes within Health Tracking to Skin/Wound and Appointments using the same follow-up mechanism. This is a refinement to the Appointments section and a new addition to the Skin/Wound area. (We also added some groovy things to the MAR, I’ll have you know.)

When entering appointment results, one can view the most recent appointment previously entered with the given clinician, as well as entering a follow-up appointment sheet that will remain on your worklist reminding you of upcoming appointments. This makes the follow-up function of Appointments clearer and adds that ability to Skin/Wound to assist with some documentation requirements asked for by Oregon users.

Be reminded that all staff can see scheduled appointments for today and tomorrow in the appointment counter on their FirstPage right hand column but without Health Tracking “update,” they cannot presently complete the form from there. Hopefully, with some new structure around privileges, we can customize that ability a little more elegantly in the future.

Bur regardless, it is very cool.

Allison

Kitti Gutierrez is the newest Certified Trainer (Julie James is now an old hat!). Kitti is the Training Officer for RENEW in Gillette, Wyoming, and is a sharp cookie. She knows Therap like it’s her best friend! Keep an eye out for her blogs and she should be in New York this upcoming February with the rest of you!!

Allison

The newest smarty pants to join Therap’s Certified Trainers hails from Cordova, Tennessee. Julie James is the Staff Development Coordinator for Guardian Community Living and she is awesome! Julie is a strong proponent of electronic documentation as she has a background in quality assurance. She knows what’s up (in other words)! Julie also has found that aside from being cool, Therap prevents mold (ask her when you see her…long story!).

Guardian is currently using both Therap and CDS and Julie is instrumental for their success. Welcome, Julie, and get blogging (on your new Mac)!

Allison

So, as you know, I went out and got an iPad. Not really. Given that the entire Portland area is out of EVERY model, I had to order from Apple and it took several weeks to get here. I watched it on FedEx ship from China to Alaska to California (don’t ask why…) and then come back to Portland.

Once I opened the box and turned it on, the first thing I noticed was the display; phenomenal for films and movies, with built-in speakers that were not all too shabby considering the size of the thing. Had to test it out with Lord of the Rings. Of course.

Here’s my take: this is only the beginning of a tremendously powerful device. The applications include everything from iPad ready versions of Apple’s iWork, to newsreaders, games, art and photography apps, on top of iTunes and about a billion other things. It works with my Kindle in the fact that I can read my books purchased on Amazon here as well…still, given iPad’s size and such, I think my Kindle still will be my primary book reader. However, reading The New York Times on the iPad is a pleasure.

The onscreen keyboard works very well and I can type nearly as fast as on a regular keyboard. I have a Bluetooth-enabled keyboard that I use as well with the iPad perched on its dock as it charges. Handy indeed.

I’ve read some reviews of the iPad dropping connectivity but that has yet to happen to me. It has worked very efficiently and is lightning fast. The gyroscope technology that spins the display is very accurate and quick as well–there is truly no wrong way to hold it.

For Theraping, it works very well, however, some of you will notice that there are some functionality issues around the Safari browser…I have it from a good source that Therap will be looking to support this in the future to make it a fully functional tool for a complete and amazing Therap experience!

There is plenty more that I could say but I’m tired…long and short of it: it’s just the beginning.

Allison