Allison's Blog

 Posts Tagged ‘Alaska’

Colleen from The Arc of Anchorage did a great overview of user access today, revealing the flexibility of super roles, security profiles and a mixture of constructed caseloads. This is a good session for idea-gathering for agencies with varied needs when it comes to user access.

Have a look see!

Allison

Washington is part of the “corridor of awesomeness,” as defined by ME. This corridor includes Alaska, Washington, and Oregon. Lately, the one in the middle, right above Oregon, is hopping!!

I have spent the past few days with providers onsite and virtually (from the entire corridor) but primarily Washington. We have a handful of new providers in eastern and northern Washington, had a user group in Tri -Cities where twenty people showed up (I expected a handful), and I am currently on the outskirts of Seattle preparing to do some mad training tomorrow morning.

Aside from a detour to Cicely, Alaska, I have been driving up, down, back and forth amidst the early spring in the NW, with dashes of mountain snow. I’m on the road until the end of the week, making miles.

See you soon!

Allison

I have been scheduling sessions exclusively for Certified Trainers from various experts, vendors and just plain smart people. The latest was a session from Paul Andrew regarding a new model of service delivery being developed in Arkansas called “health homes.” Interesting stuff for sure.

Have a look.

Allison

This is the follow up to the previous breakdown on super roles. For new provider administrators, the second session of their initial training covers super roles and caseloads as they begin to learn about access control. The other dimension within assigning user access are these Agency Wide and Administrative Roles. These privileges are controlled user by user, allowing for finer control than the broader, group-oriented super roles.

ADMINISTRATIVE ROLES: These roles are roles corresponding to provider administration functions. Within a given agency, there is usually one or two “super admins” who can do anything within the system, including creating other super admins and doling out bits and pieces of provider administration. This allows you to have varying levels of provider administrators within an agency. Granting some of these privileges to management makes sense, especially for residential providers that run 24 hours per day. Does it make sense that the only person who can change passwords works 8-4 in the main office (and none of the direct support professionals know them)? Um, no.

I often suggest that password changes and privilege adjustments be given to management staff who can then deal with the calls after hours immediately for their respective staff. This makes it easier all around.

MODULE ROLES: These are roles associated with both individual supports modules, as well as agency wide reports. For example, the ISP Template Library allow the user to create templates and/or interact with previously created templates. The Report Library allows users to pull system-wide reports about individuals, staff, privileges, and a host of other details. Essentially, these roles are non-individual specific privileges acquainted with different parts of Therap.

TMS ROLES: The Training Management System (TMS) will track your staff members’ training history, as well as allowing you to schedule training sessions right through Therap. These are the various roles that can be broken out between, for example, a “training administrator,” who may construct and maintain your system and a “training instructor,” who conducts training sessions and publishes results. For more on TMS, click here.

SCOMM ROLES: Remember, SComm is Secure Communication, Therap’s secure email system. The box for “Enable SComm” is checked automatically, which allows the given user to send or receive messages to and from anyone in your system. This is fine for most users within most agencies, however, there are more options for SComm for both internal communication and communication with other agencies.

Multi-Provider SComm: This is for systems with an “oversight” account attached to them. For example, the State of Oregon has an account linked to its providers. For those users with this box selected, they can send and receive SComms to and from the users in the oversight account. This allows for the state licensing team to communicate securely and directly with agency staff.

COIS SComm: Two agencies with separate Therap systems can elect to communicate using SComm when they support the same individual. So, if you have an individual that works with one provider and gets residential supports from another, the staff in the respective agencies can be given this option to send messages back and forth between systems. For more information on COIS, click here.

The latter two options allow you to limit the user’s access to your user list; they can only interact with either a list of people you build manually or the individual-based option will limit them to users who share access to their assigned individuals.

COMMON ROLES:

1. Enable…Search: The default is that a user can search about a year back. Many providers will add this to management, clinical and administrative staff so their searches are not limited.

2. Enable Calendar: This is checked automatically. There is a calendar that is program-based that is available for all staff with access to that program. You may disable this for outside entities (i.e., guardians, case managers), depending on how you are using the calendar. You may also have to revisit using the calendar at all if you move to individual-based caseloads as all programs that individuals are enrolled in become viewable to the user. This can be confusing and difficult to manage.

3. Enable GER Abuse and Neglect: Checking this selection will give the user the ability to view any General Event Report (GER) that has been flagged with either of those options. GERs that are flagged with one or both of these options will be invisible to all users with the exception of users with this box selected. Choose carefully.

4. Create Access…: If someone passes away or leaves your agency, the provider administrator will discharge them. Some staff may need to enter information or review data, especially if someone passes away suddenly. This box allows the given user to view and enter information even if the person has been discharged (NOTE: Leave the person in their program when discharging if you want to be able to ENTER data…Ask me if you want more details.)

5. Access to Multi-Individual Event: Read this.

And the BILLING box is only for those of you using billing and is especially for those of you doing direct electronic billing through Therap.

Drop me a note if you need help with any of these things.

Allison

New providers using Therap usually have the hardest time sorting out super roles and caseloads. During the first couple of training sessions, we explain how they will control their users’ access levels by who they can see (caseloads) and what they can do (super roles). Super Roles are the sets of privileges developed by each agency to define the level of access for each group of staff members (i.e., managers, direct care staff, quality assurance, etc.). Each user account will have at least one security profile that contains a super role and one or more caseloads.

When starting out, I would recommend ONLY checking off privileges that are attached to the modules you plan on rolling out first. The more check boxes selected, the more your staff will see. The more your staff see initially will completely freak them out can be very daunting which is why, if you are only beginning with Tlogs, GERs, and SComm, you will only create roles by checking off options under those specific boxes. The idea is to not overwhelm your staff!

As your implementation progresses, each super role can be edited and more boxes selected; the system is then opened in a controlled way and people will be prepared for the additions after they have received supplemental training. You also will prevent data being from entered in the wrong spot.

Here is a summary of roles that is pretty standard across the system:

SUBMIT: This means that a given user can enter data. If this were the only option selected, the user would not even be able to see what they had written once submitted. When someone can submit, they usually are given the option to save their item as well, putting it onto a worklist to finish later. The distinction between saving and submitting is something that should be emphasized during training, especially with General Event Reports (GERs).

VIEW: The view role means viewing and can be given in conjunction with other roles or not. Viewing only is a common privilege granted in roles for outside entities such as case managers, guardians, or auditors. This option allows them to look at any necessary data but they cannot enter material into your system.

UPDATE: Updating means altering, editing, correcting. All updates are recorded and tracked by the system. This role is typically reserved for clinical or managerial staff members. And remember, update would allow the user to update any data that they have access to, not just their own (this is a common misconception for new users). Updates can be seen by those with the update privilege in any form’s update history which is displayed as a blue link, either on the top or bottom of the form, depending on where you are in the system.

DELETE: You can delete?? (Scary, right?) Not really so not scary at all. Deleting material is impossible. Delete is simply tossing something into a trash can where it will remain forever intact, also revealing when it was removed, by whom and the reason for its removal. Those with delete as a privilege can view deleted items. And as with update, this is usually something only assigned to provider administrators and/or management staff.

APPROVE: This role manifests a little differently dependent on where you are in Therap, however, approve always means finalize. If someone can approve, I would also typically give them update as that allows them to correct anything they may erroneously approve (with the exception of GERs, as once they are approved, there is no reverting back to an editable state). I usually use an analogy like this: whoever can put something in place on paper (like an ISP program) or sign off on an incident and send it to the county or state (a GER), those are your approvers.

You will notice in some modules, additional roles such as “healthcare report” or “MAR configuration.” Those listed above are simply the most common. Some pieces of Therap have some necessary differences based on functionality. There are also Agency-Wide and Administrative Roles which are configured uniquely in each user account. Watch for a future breakdown on those.

For more information, click here for a summary of roles from our Help and Support!

Allison

Ken Slavin did a nice overview of changes within HIPAA and HiTECH, as well as reviewing the meaning surrounding CCHIT’s and ONC’s definitions of EHRs.

Below is the 2013 schedule for Alaska Therap User Groups. All meetings will be held via webinar and those presently using Therap will receive invitations around the time of the scheduled meetings. If you are interested in information about these, please contact me.

All meetings will be held at 11AM AKT.

Monday, March 4

Monday, June 3

Monday, September 9

Monday, December 2

Watch for more user groups that will be conducted onsite in your area!

Allison

I have two new certified trainers to share with you!! They are new 2013 baby new year super nerds!

My friend from Anchorage…Colleen Bailey (we have one of those new fangled internet-based friendships!)…

Colleen Bailey has been the Data Compliance Specialist for The Arc of Anchorage since May of 2012. Sometimes known as the Wicked Stepmother of Therap, her duties include management of all things Therap related, training new employees, and hoarding every color of highlighter known to mankind. Outside of the agency, she is a freelance writer and blogger, as well as a semi-professional singer/hostess of a weekly drag show. She lives in Anchorage with her new husband and an excellent set of books. (Addendum: and glittery things!)

About The Arc

The Arc of Anchorage is one of the largest agencies of its kind in Alaska, providing services to people with disabilities and their families across the greater Anchorage area. Since 1957, the agency has been committed to caring for individuals with respect, integrity and joy – as well as cooperative collaboration with sister agencies around the state. Home to over 400 employees serving over 400 individuals, The Arc is a cornerstone of the Anchorage community, offering services for individuals with mental, physical, and learning disabilities.

And then there is my new friendie, Wendy Cranford (who clearly skis…and builds snow people):

Wendy Cranford is the IT and Business Systems Manager at Metro Support Services, Inc. (MSS) in Thornton, Colorado.  A Colorado native, with a history in technology, accounting and HR, she has been working with MSS on and off throughout its 14 year history.  Wendy designed and implemented the customizations to the first interactive database used by MSS that was specific to the DD industry for MSS operations.  That original software was only retired when MSS made the pragmatic move to Therap in 2011.

Wendy is the Provider Administrator at MSS and the Trainer for all things Therap to the agency’s providers and internal staff.  She believes in detailed step by step methods of instruction with visuals that picture keystrokes and mouse-commands to aid the student and has also written a Therap User’s Guide specific to MSS procedure for the staff’s quick reference.  When Wendy is not Theraping, she is an avid mountaineer in Colorado and across the Western states. However, in her spirit, she is always Theraping.

Watch for the 2013 events from the certified trainers. Coming soon so peel your eyes!

Allison

It is no secret:

I love Alaska.

And all of the Alaskan people I have grown to know and become friends with.

Today, The Arc of Anchorage, after nearly a year of hard work, went LIVE.

Really LIVE.

Not sissy live.

Tlogs, GERs, SComms, ISPs, IDFs, and Billing kind of live.

Wow. They are the bomb dot com.

Best of luck, guys! Archie sends extra love to Andrea (who knows he is not bear bait!).

Allison

Archie is not bear bait. The results were fixed.

Love,

Allison

PS: Your webinar was AWESOME!