Richard's Blog

 Posts Tagged ‘User Groups’

I started some discussions with Renee Moffatt, Leteisha Echevarria  and Kelly Kinderman at the Buffalo, New York Conference concerning topics for advanced and expert users at the National Conference in February.  The last few years there was usually a conference where a group of long time expert users including Cheryl at NHTC and Bonnie at Lifequest and I would get together and plan some ideas for sessions.

We now have an increased number of advanced and expert users to get input from who are dispersed throughout the US.

The February 2012 conference in East Hanover, NJ will still have many sessions on beginner and intermediate topics covering practically all modules.   I might add that Justin or Allison tend to make those schedules.

The advanced sessions are designed to allow users to talk with other users about how they are implementing and using various modules.  Often the discussions are as much about policies than just how the Therap system functions. And these are truly discussions which will vary based on who shows up. In some cases there are brief presentations from a user before a discussion and sometimes its an open discussion.

Some topics I am considering for this year include:

• Managing staff policies for cellphones and computers when not at the office (or not regular work hours)
• Family Access
• Access to Therap for Individuals
• Preparing for CARF Surveys
• Disaster preparedness (and offline forms)
• Interacting with service coordinators at outside agencies
• 105 uses for an ISP
• Training materials on Therap
• What to do with all of this new data
• How agencies are using Activity Tracking
• Global Templates
• Open Roundtable discussions

I welcome any feedback or thoughts.

I am please to announce a regional conference at the Four Points by Sheraton in Meriden, CT from September 29-30, 2011.

The conference will be geared to providers of service to people with developmental disabilities in Connnecticut and Massachusetts.

Special thanks to Stan Soby at Oak Hill and Terry Ford at Horizons. I had conversations with them at the most recent national conference about having a regional conference in Connecticut. And there is now an ongoing Therap Connecticut Users group for agencies working with the Department of Developmental Services.
Schedules will be posted soon.

We often get requests for new features, changes in existing features and other suggestions on how to improve our product.  It has been through these interactions as well as our experience in actually running the system that we have been able to continually improve Therap.

Many suggestions are somewhat universally supported – for example the recent ability to reenter a password and continue when previously the system logged someone out off after 20 or 30 minutes of inactivity.  We had heard that request at conferences and through Therap Ideas.

But not all suggestions are universally agreed on by our users. Quite often users will disagree on even how to implement and interpret a required state form. One of the challenges of developing Therap is that we are trying to run a cost-effective system – which means that there are certain national or state standards that agencies need to agree on – otherwise to have complete customization would be needlessly expensive.   But we have been clear that we will not do customization for individual providers which does not benefit other providers.

We offer a number of ways for agencies to engage in this discussion.  While we do have phone calls and visits to individual agencies – that is really not an efficient way of having a dialog to engage the entire community of users.

A few of the best ways to have effective conversation and influence future development  of Therap are:

1)      Attend a conference (in particular the national provider administrator conference – next one coming in February 2010 in Fishkill, NY)

2)      Participate in a online state specific user group  – We have had many state specific user groups recently and expect to add more in 2010.

3)      Participate in a local user group meeting. We have had meetings scheduled either as part of conferences in states including Oregon, Maine, North Dakota, Montana, New York, Indiana, and more.  We also have had local user groups scheduled for half day meetings in locations including Washington DC, Central Missouri, Western Missouri, Western New York, Hudson Valley NY, New York City, Connecticut, Maryland and more.

4)      Participate in a topic based user group. We have scheduled user groups on topics ranging from ISPs to Traumatic Brain Injury to Medicaid Service Coordination and more.

5)      Participate in the online dialog at Therap Ideas inside the password protected application.

Because there is interaction between customers, these are useful to get a sense of how multiple agencies are handling similar issues and concerns. Therefore, these are excellent opportunities to both hear what is going on and influence future development.

One issue I would be interested in feedback from users on is their preference  in dealing with perhaps somewhat complex requirements which might require a discussion. How have people decided when to discuss something directly with a  Therap team member as compared to participating in user groups and Therap conferences?  When do people choose to user Therap ideas for example?

We appreciate input from everyone who uses Therap.  The issue is sometimes what format is effective for this input. Conferences provide  multiple opportunities to talk with other users, listen to tips and tricks on using various Therap modules and interact with Therap team members as part of various panels and discussions.  We cannot replicate these discussions in any cost effective manner in a series of one on one discussions with providers.  But one on one discussions do provide other benefits in terms of agency specific issues.  When is it reasonable for us to tell an agency (in particular a someone larger agency) that they really should attend a conference or user group calls in order to learn from other users and engage in dialog on their suggestions?

We realize that there are cost issues including travel and time away from office attending conferences. But we have tried to run conferences regionally around the country and keep the costs down for attendees.  And online user groups are available from anywhere via telephone and internet.

Encouraging any discussion and interaction is generally a positive. But having some of these discussions on user group calls or conferences with a mix of representatives from providers, state agencies, training team members and programmers really allows a good discussion with actionable items.

We had our first New York City User Group meeting today. Thanks to Services for the Underserved for hosting and refreshments.

Other agencies in attendence included Cardinal McCloskey Services, Cay Community Services Organization, and Center for Family Support.

Jim Kelly, Justin Brockie (via phone) and I presented with discussions on a range of New York topics including billing, reshab plans, medicaid service coordination, ISPs and more.

As it always seems in New York, a good discussion was held on OMRRD and OMIG and policies of electronic signatures.

The group was already discussing future meetings. So look for announcements of date and time.

People often ask which Therap conference makes the most sense to attend. There are really three type of conferences we currently run (I might change that to 4 types if I can call user groups mini-conferences).

1) Therap Regional Conferences like the 2 day conference being held today in Salem, Oregon. These conference are designed for a concentrated local set of Therap users. Most of the sessions are module specific.

For 2010 we are expecting to hold conferences again in Maine and Oregon. Plus new regional conferences in North Dakota, Montana and other states as we have more Therap users.

2) Side by Side Technology Conferences with College of Direct Support. These confernces are held throughout the country and are designed for agencies to get a broad exposure to a number of technology companies working in the developmental disability community. There are sessions on many aspects of use of Therap and College Direct Support, plus general discussions on issues with past participants including Deyta, Rest Assured and Web Footed Friends. The first 2010 conference will be in Kansas City Missouri.

3) Therap National Provider Administrator Conference. Our 2010 conference will be held in Fishkill, NY February 2-4, 2010. There will be 9 simultaneous sessions for 3 days. Everything from beginning how-to sessions to brainstorming discussions and more. It is designed for Advanced Therap Provider Administrators as well as serving as a regional conference for the New York/mid-Atlantic region. It is also a good confernce for new agencies just starting up to attend.

4) Our user groups are almost “mini-conferences” so I thought I would list them here. Tomorrow there is one in New York City. We have had them both in person and over the phone/internet. They are both regionally based by state or topic based.

If you have questions on which type of conference is best for you or your agency – just ask.

We recently posted information about a New York City User Group meeting for November 20 to be hosted by Services for the Underserved.

Our user groups are often held as webinars over the phone and internet. We also hold many meetings in person. We recently held meetings in Buffalo and Monitcello New York as well as Washington DC and Hartford, CT.

One benefit for me personally for a New York City User Group is that the meeting will be close enough to my house that I could actually walk to the meeting after dropping my kids at school and still be on time. I will probably take the subway though -as it is about 3 miles from where I live.

The New York meetings will have a mix of national and local issues – including using Therap to help comply with OMRDD regulations, discussions of electronic signature issues in New York, medicaid service coordinator issues and more topics.

There is a longer list on the site including phone user groups for North Dakota and South Dakota. The Oregon user group will be incorporated into the conference being held in Salem, Oregon in 2 weeks.  And of course we have our annual national provider administrator conference coming up in Fishkill, NY in February

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We are scheduling a series of user groups over the next couple of months as online webinars.

They basically fit two broad categories. One is state specific user groups (Montana, Missouri, Minnesota, North Dakota, Florida, etc). We will be discussing some state specific issues including how surveyors in specific states are dealing with electronic signatures, dealing with state requirements and state forms, as well as some general system topics.

The second set of webinar/user groups are topics such as Using Therap to meet Ancor’s performance excellence initiative, using Therap for Acquired Brain Injury, a discussion with Therap and College of Direct Support users of the interface and national topics.

If there are topics you think would make for good webinars let us know. We also have many more topics for discussion at our February National Provider Association Conference in Fishkill.