Anna's Blog

Therap welcomes The State Operated Community Programs (SOCP) in Oregon as part of our family of quality providers.

SOCP is a comprehensive service that provides 24-hour care and supervision to people in Oregon with developmental disabilities who represent the most risk to the public at large, their peers, or themselves. SOCP provides residential care, employment and community inclusion support, which include health and medical care, behavioral support, personal care, vocational training, job support, education, recreation, psychological services and community integration.

SOCP is dedicated to providing the support necessary to maintain the quality of life, achieve the highest possible level of independence and promote social opportunities, which benefit the individuals and the community.

A BIG Therap Welcome goes out to all of the folks that worked so hard to get this project going. We are excited to build Therap into all of the State Operated Community Programs! Whoo-Hoo! Way to go Oregon!!!

Located in Duncan Oklahoma, Duncan Group Homes is our newest provider to join the more than 400 providers across the country that are moving to a vision of a paperless company.

Duncan Group Homes, Inc. was established in May of 1982 with one group home. Since then their services have expanded to meet the needs of citizens, and now includes two group homes, a 12 unit semi-independent apartment complex, a 20 unit modern apartment complex, and three other properties in the Duncan area.

Duncan works to assist their residents in all area of life, depending on their individual needs and their individual level of accomplishment. Staff members work with each person to help him or her increase skills of independence in housekeeping, cooking, laundry, money management, personal choices, health and safety issues, mobility, self-medication administration, social skills and prevocational skills.

Therap welcomes Robin Arter, Executive Director, and all of the Duncan staff to our family of quality providers. We look forwrad to working with you!

Ya know, when we set out to hire awesome team members…we certainly have made it a habit. Our newest jewel in the Therap crown is Frank Stahl.

Let me tell you a little bit about Mr. Stahl…our newest Business Developmental Consultant who will be responsible for Kansas, Eastern Colorado, Oklahoma, and Eastern Texas.

Besides being a well respected colleague of mine when I was an Executive Director in Kansas…

Frank has over 35 years working professionally in the field of disability services.  He worked for over 12 years as the President / CEO of a developmental disability services provider prior to working for the State of New Mexico.  Most recently Frank served the State of Kansas for almost 20 years.  He retired in June 2010 from the Division of Disability & Behavioral Health Services, where he served as the Deputy Director.

Frank holds a Bachelors degree in Business Administration and Masters degrees in both Business and Social Justice.  He served his country for 12 years in the United States Navy where he had the opportunity to travel extensively while raising his family.

Frank has 4 adult daughters who have brought him 10 grandchildren who all live in Texas.

Now…how impressive is that???!!!!

Welcome Frank. I am thrilled to be working with you and look forward to converting you to a truly ORANGE-LOVING Therapite (I’ll explain later)! See you in Denver!

There is no way that you haven’t heard about the Denver Therap Conference! Its only a week-and-a-half away and you can bet it will be a GOOD TIME!!! How can it not be a good time when you get to hang out with Jeff, Moe, Kris, Deb, Frank, and of course…me..

If you haven’t registered…don’t ya think you should be gettin’ it done? Yeah, that’s what I thought too.

Here’s the registration information. Just click on the button and make it happen…

See you in Damon’s Bar and Grill…I’ll be the one with the pretty Cosmo in the martini glass…oh…during the conference you can find me at the registration table amongst the Ther-bears.

Hi all of my loyal blog readers…yes Tony…I mean you

I was out most of last week so I wasn’t as attentive to my blog. There is a lot going on at Therap that I want to tell you about.

Let’s see…where to begin with the preview… First, we are getting several new users, we also have a conference coming up next week in Baltimore and another in Denver the following week. We’ve added another State to our list of those that are requiring providers to use Therap for improved quality assurance and information management, and finally, we are still adding new staff to our crew.

WHOO!!!!!!!!!!!! You aren’t kidding! There is A LOT going on at Therap these days.

Stay tuned and I’ll catch you up on all the happenings. See you Monday!

It is always delightful when one of Therap’s awesome users hits an anniversary and wants to tell us all about their experience.

I'm holding Becky's ORANGE phone. She L-O-V-E-S Therap!

Such is the case this morning when Becky Simpson sent me an email letting me know it was their anniversary and sent me a run-down on their progress. Check out what Becky wrote me…

Our Progress – by Becky Simpson, CEO – Pathways Enterprises, Ashland, OR.

Pathway is doing great with Therap!  We have no regrets and anticipate our next module (completing the Training Management and adding BSP’s, ISP’s).

A year ago we introduced t-logs, SCOMM and GER’s to all residential staff, ATE and some of our employment services.  We quickly added MAR’s and Health information.  New staff are indoctrinated to Therap within 30 days of employment-it’s part of their New Employee Orientation.

Management uses information for treatment team meetings, analyzing trends and reviewing historical GER patterns.  We taught our county Service Coordinators how to utilize Therap to check on the individuals they support through t-logs and GER’s.  Our medication errors plummeted, which made everyone happy.

Our nurses are able to access client information quickly, then offer support and guidance to staff as needed.  Our doctors appreciate the one or two pages of concise information vs the 4 inch binders we used to haul to the med appointments.

We can chart mental health symptoms for counseling and/or psychiatric appointments, which helps them make more accurate clinical decisions.

The list goes on and on…

We are part way through the process of adding Training Management to our repertoire of modules.  We input 3 years of data to ensure critical trainings were captured.

The Therap Training and Management Support Team is invaluable.  We have never been without support and typical have answers to questions within a few hours.

Our 1 year anniversary is a great milestone for Pathway.  We embraced the technology and have not looked back.  Thank you Therap Team!!

Sincerely,

Becky Simpson, CEO

Me with my gal-pal Alison

Many of my readers have met my best girlfriend, Alison Burt. Amazing lady and one of the greatest friends a girl could ask for…however…we have a dilemma…I have been named as the “Best Friend” of a new young lady (actually, I am her “9th” best friend…there are a few in front of me) and I promised her that I would introduce her to folks on my blog.

Meet Miss Annelise (pronounced, Anna-Lese)…the daughter of Laura Marecic, one of my dear friends for the past 28 years. I’m spending some time over the holiday with Laura and her family. I have gained a shadow that talks shoes…dresses…and all things “girlie”. This is awesome!!! Oh, and she shares ice cream with me. I’m feelin’ the love!

To Laura, Brenden, George (the dog), and Annelise…thank you for taking such good care of me.

To Alison…you know I love you best my dear! Besides, a 5-year old best friend…now that’s high maintenance… and I’m not all that excited about 24/7 Sponge Bob. So, I guess you are still stuck with me! How lucky could a girl be?!! Okay…I know what you are thinking…I’M THE LUCKY ONE. I know…I know…

Yep..it was bound to happen eventually and today’s the day. here’s what happened…

Dad helps me out with a pose (he had no idea why he was holding those things..halarious).

Dad and I grabbed some Cracker Jacks at the local Wally World. A buck -29 and well worth the memory of sharing those tasty coated popcorn morsels and peanuts with my Pop. My favorite part is that Dad always lets me have the surprise in the bag.

I completely understand why Dad lets me have the surprise now…its always the same exact prize…a “puzzle” of Ben Franklin. What happened to the days when you could get the prize from your beloved Cracker Jacks and actually get SURPRISED? What a rip off. I can’t imagine ANY child…young or …well..not so young…enjoying folding a puzzle of Ben Franklin EVERY time they buy a bag of Cracker Jacks. Bring back the pink poodle charm…or the parachute guy…hey, I’d settle for a “puzzle” that was someone OTHER than Benjamin! At this point…uh…I know the prize.

Hey Dad…I just think this is your sense of humor…but you can solve the puzzle next time…oh, and not to bust your bubble, but its Ben Franklin.

My chica's from high school are still friends today, Laura Brooker and Laura Daniels squish me in the middle.

Yeah, I know…what’s a Laura Sandwich? Well, its when two of my friends… named LAURA…stand on either side of me while taking a picture and Laura Daniels says…”Look, Anna, you are a Laura Sandwich”. Cute, huh?

I’m spending some time with my Dad and my girlfriends this weekend. It should be a lot of fun and sharing of a ton of stories.

Have an awesome 4th of July from all of us at Therap to all of our friends across the country.

What fun can I get in to on the day before a holiday weekend? Its pretty simple if you are hanging out with Cori and Belle Adair (The Right Thing). I spent my afternoon with these two awesome ladies while visiting Wichita, Kansas today.

Belle and Cori strike a pose with me at their new offices

In addition to all the applications that TRT has implemented with Therap… including Billing…they are now going to be using the ISP applicaitons to track all of their goals. Congratulations Cori! I look forward to seeing you in Denver this summer!