2022 Year in Review - Product Accomplishments for AWARDS & FCM
The Foothold team had an exciting and productive 2022, especially as it relates to our product development. In addition to continuing to evolve our solutions and meet customer needs for today, a lot of foundational work was completed that will be the building blocks of product development goals for 2023. We wanted to share with you some of the ways in which we continued to invest in both AWARDS and FCM as modern solutions that are growing with our customers and the marketplace.
AWARDS
For more granular details of the work we accomplished in AWARDS in 2022, I encourage you to review the FootNotes archives along with the 2022 AWARDS Enhancements Roundup webinar recording. But for highlights, here are some of the 2022 projects that are worth celebrating:
Modernizing the User Experience
We put a lot of effort into transforming AWARDS into a more modern and user-friendly software. In June, we launched the UI Refresh version of AWARDS which uplifted the design to a more modern look and standardized the back-end code to prepare for the larger exciting Redesign initiatives coming in 2023. And while it feels like a long time ago, in January of last year we launched the new and improved AWARDS Resource Center! The new system has improved the user experience by offering better search functionality, quick access to new features, more flexible navigation, better printing options, and more.
Ease of Use and Simplifying Processes
Whenever we can, we look for ways to simplify the steps you take to manage your work in AWARDS. We take your feedback to heart, and this year we were able to accomplish a good number of customer requests. We've added Pronouns and Preferred Name data elements as options in AWARDS. We've removed the requirement for an "out time" to be added when using the Reception Desk functionality. For Progress Note, Contacts Log, and Group Note records, we've added a blank option in the Service Type drop-down menu for agencies who don't want to make the Service Type a required data field. For ReportBuilders, you're no longer limited to two years of data when you're running reports for a single client. And in the AWARDS File Cabinets, you can now previous PDF and image files without having to download the file to your computer.
Efficiency Gains
Continuing in the spirit of ease of use and simplifying processes, we tackled a few projects that can save you a significant amount of time! ReportBuilders and ExportBuilders can now be automatically scheduled. You can schedule reports (ad hoc or recurring) to run automatically and be delivered to your Messages inbox. Also with ReportBuilder, there is now a "Current User" filter that pulls in data ascribed to the various Employee ID/Worker ID fields within AWARDS, which easily allows a report to be run with only a specific AWARDS user's records or caseload data. Be sure to check out the May FootNotes digest to see some more examples of how you can use this functionality.
Security and Data Integrity
Overarching and underlying all the work we do is our focus on data security and data integrity. This past year we added "authentication by email" as an option for two-factor authentication when logging into AWARDS. In addition to using an authenticator app, two-factor authentication can be set up to send the required login code to the worker’s email address. Security experts highly recommend two-factor authentication for logging in to systems that hold protected information, and this new option allows more of our customer agencies to enforce this security recommendation. We also added an enhancement that prohibits a note from being e-signed before the end time of the progress note occurs. And we built functionality that will identify overlapping service documentation, notifying you when a progress note overlaps with a previously saved note for the same client and/or worker in another program.
Billing
We spent this past year planning and preparing for the upcoming BillingBuilder Revamp initiative. While a lot of effort was channeled into our 2023 plans, we pushed out some helpful user enhancements for entering and managing consumer authorization data.
Data & Analytics
We know that our customers have evolving data and analytics needs that require tools that go beyond the flexible and easy-to-use reporting tools that exist in AWARDS. Foothold now has two data products: InSights and DataStudio, the latter of which was released in 2022. These two products allow us to meet you where you are in your data journey and help prepare your organization for the future. InSights allows agencies to jump right into analytics dashboarding with curated data models representing the most used domains in AWARDS. This year we added several models including: FormBuilder, Housing Utilization, Plans and Reviews, and Incidents. We are actively working on releasing HMIS and BillingBuilder models as well.
AWARDS DataStudio uses the powerful infrastructure that underlies InSights and gives you direct access to your data in a cloud data warehouse where you can attach a tool of your choice, move data to your own warehouse, or write SQL against your data. Your data is YOUR data and we want to make sure you can seamlessly incorporate it into your existing infrastructure or help you build modern data infrastructure with best industry practices. Ideally, funding stream changes such as value-based payments will help human service organizations better represent the value they provide to payers and communities and we’re excited to help you tell that story through your data in 2023.
Critical Certifications Achieved
An important accomplishment for AWARDS was earning its Certificate of Health IT Compliance - 2015 CURES Edition via Drummond Group, an Authorized Certification Body. This stamp of approval designates that AWARDS delivers the required functionality to enable providers and hospitals to meet the requirements of various regulatory programs that involve the use of certified electronic health record (EHR) technology. To earn the certification, AWARDS was tested to be in accordance with applicable standards and certification criteria put forth by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. AWARDS was first certified in 2014 for MU 2014 edition, and then again in 2017 for MU 2015 edition. This recent certification included important CURES updates. This is a priority initiative for Foothold and it requires a large internal task force to ensure AWARDS continues to remain compliant.
FCM
Introducing a Supervisory Role and Dashboard
We’re thrilled that this year we were able to introduce a new supervisory role into the FCM application. This role is intended to allow folks who manage a team of care managers to quickly understand where their team is succeeding and where they need more support. Supervisors now log in to a dashboard designed specifically for their needs and are able to run reports focused solely on the team they’re working with day to day.
Improving the Transitions of Care Tools
Helping our Health Home members set up a smooth transition out of the hospital and into a supportive environment with access to the doctors, social workers, and the extended care team they need is a top priority for Health Home care managers. That’s why improving the tools to document transitions of care and document a care manager's follow-up on transitions of care was a top priority for us in 2022. This recently released feature set will allow care managers to merge many associated alerts about a hospitalization into a single event, update the status of the needed follow-up for quick reference, and link that event to the care manager’s follow-up narrative provided in the encounter notes.
Updating HCBS and CORE Workflow
Over the course of 2022, we updated a number of things in the HCBS and CORE FCM workflow to better support care managers in meeting the documentation needs of the new program requirements. Users can now document when a member declines or expresses interest in both HCBS and CORE, they can document which care team members are CORE providers, and record each service enrollment period with their HCBS and CORE service providers.
Supporting a Diverse Member Population
Making sure that our platform is working for care managers doing the day-to-day work is a top priority for FCM. Feedback from users led us to make a series of improvements last year dedicated to making the platform more supportive of a diverse member population. Enhancements like adding pronouns to a member’s demographic details and creating space for a distinct Medicaid name field (which allows care managers to specify when there is not alignment between the name the patient identifies with and the name on the patient’s insurance) now mean care managers can more accurately reflect the members they are working with in FCM.
In Conclusion
As you can see, 2022 was a big year peppered with lots of achievements on both of our products, and we’re even more excited about what’s ahead! Watch out for an email from our CEO, Alyza Tarmohamed, next week. She’s going to share more information about Foothold’s goals for 2023 and how we are evolving to better partner with our customers. As always, we are grateful for our customer community - both for the work you do to make our communities better and for the trust you put in all of us at Foothold. We look forward to continuing to support you with a software solution that meets your needs and elevates the level of care you can provide.