FootNotes - December 2022

What's New in AWARDS

The following new features, enhancements, and updates will be available in your AWARDS database beginning on Wednesday, December 13th.

New Billing Guidelines for Your NYS Supportive Housing Programs

Attention New York State Supportive Housing providers! Get ready for the new billing guidelines going into effect in January. To help you prepare, we’re here to offer some guidance along with a few tools for you to use. Be sure to configure your Supportive Housing programs in AWARDS with:

• A new list of Service Types for OMH reporting. Request service types using this form.
• A new support plan format. A PlanBuilder template is now available for the Support Plan. Turn our template, named “NY OMH Supportive Housing Plan” into a Plan Format that supportive housing programs can use with or without your own tweaks. Users with PlanBuilder permission can find it in Builders & Tools > PlanBuilder > Templates.
• The LPHA Recommendation for Rehab and Tenancy Supports form. Download it from the shared forms library and add your programs. This form is located on the Services - Individual menu and can be moved to another location and/or modified as needed by users with FormBuilder permissions.
• A new Progress Note form. The RTS Progress Note is also downloadable from the shared forms library and can be modified and added to the programs and location you choose; it is currently located in the individual Progress Notes.

To request that we configure the service types for you, please complete the enhancement request form and send it to [e-mail] or through the Help Desk.

A Look at What's Ahead...

The Future of AWARDS Is an Exciting One!

As 2022 comes to a close, we are incredibly excited about the year ahead and what it means for AWARDS' growth. The AWARDS Redesign - which is a re-imagining of the AWARDS application from the ground up - is officially underway! This is a multi-year project where we revamp modules and introduce new workflows, functions, and a modern design, so that AWARDS better meets your needs and those of your clients.

Just like the AWARDS Redesign, the BillingBuilder Revamp initiative is focused on improving the user experience by modernizing the entire BillingBuilder module from configuration to reporting. Currently, our focus is on the configuration modules; from there, we will pivot to processing, and finish with reporting.

So what does this all mean for AWARDS users?

• Over the next several months as we focus on technical work, you will see fewer items announced in our "What's New in AWARDS" section, as well as fewer customer-facing features detailed in the "What's New" writeups.
• Our New Enhancements webinars will be tabled until there is notable customer-facing functionality to review together.
• Soon, we'll be sharing roadmaps for both the AWARDS Redesign and the BillingBuilder Revamp, which will guide the overall efforts of these initiatives. This is a huge undertaking, where we can expect potential roadblocks and necessary course changes - as we continue to respond to urgent customer needs and regulatory requirements - so these roadmaps will be fluid.
• As it stands today, we plan to complete the initial technical lift in the first half of 2023 while also looking to deliver our first major user-facing milestone: a redesigned login page with two-factor authentication and other quality-of-life enhancements. 

CURES ACT Certification for AWARDS

For the past several years, AWARDS has been recognized as a Federally Certified Complete Ambulatory EHR for Meaningful Use, according to ONC’s Final Rule. For the past few months, we have been busy preparing AWARDS with the necessary Cures Updates to complete our CURES ACT Certification by the end of the year and submit Real World Testing results.

The AWARDS Certified Edition includes features such as Encounters (enabling users to record all of the details of encounters with patients, while being able to update their medical records, write notes, and generate interoperability documents); Behavioral Healthcare-focused Clinical Quality Measures (providing users with a one-click export to the QRDA format needed for many value-based payment programs; and Interoperability (AWARDS generates C-CDA documents, has the ability to send and receive care-related documents by Direct, and exchanges data with Health Information Exchanges).

AWARDS is already certified as 2015 Edition Health IT, which is the underlying criteria required by the CURES Act. To prepare for our official CURES Act certification, several components of AWARDS functionality have been updated for the “CURES” edition of the criteria. For example, we have updated the C-CDAs (to include the USCDI elements and the relied-upon software that translates the data into a human-readable format). Also, a big lift in the process of preparing for our CURES certification has been setting up FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources), an updated standard that defines how healthcare information can be exchanged between different computer systems regardless of how it is stored in those systems.

The AWARDS Certified Edition and the AWARDS Interoperability Center both position Foothold to successfully meet direct requests for information, and to assist our customer agencies with the requests they receive. Additionally, we are in compliance with the ONC's 2020 Cures Act Final Rule’s Information Blocking restrictions.

Another focus of our recent engineering work has been the Real World Testing requirements of the CURES Act. Real World Testing is an annual requirement for all health IT developers participating in the ONC Health IT Certification Program. The purpose of this requirement is for certified IT providers to demonstrate the interoperability and functionality of their certified health IT in real-world settings and scenarios, rather than in a controlled test environment. Real World Testing verifies that deployed Certified Health IT continues to perform as intended by conducting and measuring observations of interoperability and data exchange.

Future Enhancement Release Dates

Here are the dates for the next couple of AWARDS product releases so that you can keep them on your radar:

• January 25th
• March 8th

All deployments (subject to change) are scheduled for the evenings prior to the dates listed here, making the new features and functionality they provide available to users bright and early on release days.

Connect With Us!

To see which training sessions and webinars are coming soon, check out the Upcoming Events in FootholdConnect (accessible from your AWARDS navigation bar). You can also see a current Upcoming Events Calendar in the Resource Center. See something you're interested in?  Register today!

The Faces of Foothold

Corey Schomer, Principal Software Engineer

We at Foothold talk about ourselves collectively all the time. For example, “We” are launching new AWARDS features, or “We” are working on a large-scale initiative to redesign AWARDS. But behind the “we” are some faces that we think you should know. This section of FootNotes - The Faces of Foothold - is a place to spotlight the individuals working hard (sometimes behind the scenes) to make sure your experience of AWARDS is one that elevates the capabilities and the outcomes of the hard work you do every day.

Meet Corey Schomer, one of our very talented software engineers! You’ve heard us talk a lot about the AWARDS Redesign project. Over the coming months, you’ll hear us announce the progress of the Redesign project, and we’ll continue to share the exciting impact this work will have on you - our users. It is Corey and his team who are working hard behind the scenes to make this project a reality. Corey leads a team of very skilled software engineers who are tasked with setting up the architecture and engineering of the re-imagined AWARDS. As we collect feedback from our customer community about what things matter the most in the Redesign project, Corey and his team will be doing the work to make those dreams come true.

Corey joined Foothold in 2011. Previously, he worked as a software engineer for another company specializing in behavioral health services technology. Corey’s long history of working as a software engineer within the human services world has given his work a special meaning. In his own words, he loves being able to help make AWARDS more scalable and flexible, which in turn, allows [you] our customers to help more people.

We are very lucky to have Corey here as part of our Foothold team. And as you start to see the fruits of the hard work that has gone into planning the AWARDS Redesign project, you’ll know you’re lucky to have him here too!

Fun Fact: When he’s not engineering software, Corey recharges by exploring the forests, lakes, and abundant wildlife of the great northwest and the Rocky Mountains.

News You Can Use!

A Letter From the CEO!

Last month, we shared an announcement that Tyler Hoffman would be moving on from Foothold to work with Radicle Health (our human services software group of which Foothold is the largest part) and that Alyza Tarmohamed, our President and COO, would become the new Foothold CEO effective December 1! Read below for a special letter from Alyza.

Hi Everyone! I’m so excited to be writing to you as Foothold’s new CEO. While I have only been with the Foothold team for a short time, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many of you, and I look forward to meeting more of you in the future! Foothold is a truly unique company and I consider myself so lucky to be part of this remarkable team serving you - our incredible customer community. Thank you for the warm welcome notes I’ve received.

As we begin this journey together, I want to start by thanking Tyler Hoffman for his exceptional leadership of Foothold over the last few years. Tyler has been a tireless advocate for our customers and the needs of the markets we serve and I know I have some pretty big shoes to fill. As you might have read in Tyler’s letter last month, he hasn’t gone far. He is now serving as the Group CEO of Radicle Health, and we’re extremely happy about that because his insights and indefatigable energy can’t be matched! I’ve been super grateful for the opportunity to work with Tyler and the entire Foothold team these past few months, and I’m excited to continue this great work along with the Foothold team who brings their expertise, passion, and commitment to their work every day. As we enter this next chapter of Foothold, our goals remain the same: using our solutions to empower you – our valued customers – and showing up as the best possible partner for you and your mission-critical work.

I cannot pretend to match the expertise that many of our team members hold in this space, but what I can promise is that I am eager to learn! Also, I will bring my experiences in software, consultative support, and analytics programs into the mix, and hopefully, add some fresh perspectives as well. I recognize that today, more than ever, the work you do is constantly evolving and remains critically valuable to the communities in which you operate; unfortunately, it also is unlikely to get any easier. My job, alongside the entire Foothold team, is to provide software, service, and support to enable that work, help address some pain points, and find ways to partner with you for the future. My commitment to all of you is that we will devote everything we can to that job.

And with that, I have an ask: if there are things you think are valuable for us to know, like where we are doing a great job that could help others, or where we need to do better and it’s slowing you down, please don’t ever hesitate to reach out to your Foothold relationships, and to me! We are always trying to be better and the way we do that is through your valuable feedback, whether it’s positive or negative. Some of the items you raise may be things that we can handle right away, or that we’re already in the works of addressing. In other cases, they may be items that we cannot address in the short term, but we can consider them for the future. In either scenario, I promise that we’ll be transparent and clear with you about each situation so that we can work together with all the facts at hand!

I look forward to working with – and learning from – you all; my e-mail address is below so please don’t be shy about reaching out. I look forward to sharing more with you over the coming months about the great work Foothold has planned for 2023!

I wish you a very happy holidays,

Alyza

[e-mail]

We Want to Hear From You - Survey For the AWARDS Redesign Project!

As you know, we've been on a mission to refine and enhance the AWARDS experience. This past year we gave the interface a refresh with our AWARDS Refresh initiative. Currently, we're working hard to update the technical infrastructure (all the back-end code) to make sure AWARDS is ready for the exciting redesign efforts ahead. As we look ahead and prepare to embark on the full AWARDS Redesign project, we want to hear from YOU to understand the functionality in AWARDS that is most important to you and the work that you do. Here is a link to a short survey that asks you to rank existing AWARDS features along with some of the features our customers have asked us to build. Your rankings will help us know what matters most and will inform how and where we prioritize our efforts. Below is a full list of the features we’d like you to prioritize, along with their descriptions.

Behaviors - Building a new Behaviors module to better track clients’ behaviors in an easier, more intuitive way and allow for tying behaviors into a Behavior Plan. This feature can be used by I/DD programs to identify and track progress towards behavior-related goals.

Budgeting - Money management functionality, allowing program staff to track and report on various types of bank accounts and fund distribution for clients.

Calendar - Introducing new and advanced features to our current Calendar offering, such as availability tracking, custom employee grouping, and bulk actions.

Customized Home Page/Dashboard - Allowing users to customize their AWARDS home page with dashlets that display information and records important to the user. This can help users manage daily activities in the system, provide easy access to “to-do” items that need attention, and analyze data at-a-glance.

E-sign Functionality - Overhauling and streamlining our signature setup and configuration process so that it is easier to use, and to make it available in additional modules in the system, such as Incidents. Please note that Remote Signing (see below) is a separate feature.

Face Sheet w/ Enhanced Printing - Enhancing the usability of the face sheet by better organizing the records displayed and the ability to work with the records. This will include improvements for a printable face sheet. Additionally, we plan to extend the face sheet to display and provide access to more of the client’s chart records across programs which will serve a client-centric workflow.

Forms and Assessments - Enhancing the workflows and functionalities of configuring forms in the FormBuilder module and completing and signing the forms designed.

Housing/External Housing - Improving the usability of our residence units and resident housing functionality plus tracking external addresses for clients. Additionally, enhancing our address-tracking functionality in general for all clients.

Import Tool Capabilities - Enhancing and extending our ImportTool capabilities to allow for importing various records into AWARDS more easily.

Incidents - Improving our incident tracking module in various ways such as providing better options to customize the incident form and manage permissions plus adding in e-sign functionality.

Intake and Admission - Providing a more user-friendly workflow for the intake and admission process to allow for enhanced configurability so that all the necessary data and forms are included.

Messages - Overhauling our messages module to enhance functionality surrounding intra-organization communication and secure messaging.

Offline Use for Service Documentation - Functionality that would allow your users to complete service documentation (Progress Notes, Forms, etc.) or collect signatures while offline, in locations, or at times when an internet connection is not available. Once back online, they can sync the updated service documentation in AWARDS.

Patient Portal - Often called a Consumer Portal, Family Portal, or Client Portal. This would give clients/consumers access to their own chart and make some actions available to them. They would be able to review and sign forms, securely send messages to providers, review their treatment plans and goals, self-schedule appointments, etc.

Plans & Reviews - Adding to our PlanBuilder configuration options to allow for more flexibility in plan design and administration and enhancing the functions of Plans and Reviews so that it can be used more as a universal treatment plan.

Progress Notes - Redesigning the Progress Notes module to provide better ease-of-use and allow more streamlined service documentation which is core to our providers. The plan will be to include all paths users take to document individual client services, such as the checklist functionality and contact log feature.

Reception Desk/Front Desk - General enhancements to reception desk/program attendance documentation. Improved ability to manage the flow of clients checking in at the front desk.

Remote Signing - Similar to DocuSign functionality in which you can send a note or form to individuals not logged into AWARDS which they can review and electronically sign. The signatures will lock the records and be reflected in AWARDS afterwards.

Reporting - Enhancing the workflow of designing reports in our ReportBuilder, giving quick access to favorite report formats and providing more data entry access through ReportBuilder reports. (This would be separate from our Data Studio/Insights offering).

Tip of the Month - Do You Know the Best Way to Submit a Help Desk Ticket?

When you submit a ticket to the Foothold Help Desk, it’s important that you provide all the information needed for the team to be able to answer the questions you have or investigate the issue you are experiencing. To submit a ticket in AWARDS, click the Help button on the top Navigation bar, and then click Help Desk. The Help Desk form will display for you to complete. Be sure to add as much detail as possible! This page can also be opened from within the Messages module by clicking the life preserver icon at the top of the page.

If you are an end user, the ticket is sent to all members of your local AWARDS Help Desk team. Any of those individuals (listed above the subject field on the reporting form) may review your ticket and respond to you. This response will typically be returned via an AWARDS Message, but that may vary based on the workflow established for your agency. If they are unable to assist you, they will forward your ticket to the Foothold Help Desk.

If you are a member of your agency’s local Help Desk team, your message is sent directly to Foothold Technology’s Help Desk, along with any members of your local Help Desk team that you have chosen under “To”, and to anyone you have specified under “Cc”. From that point forward, all communication regarding the ticket, including any responses or requests for follow-up information from the Foothold Help Desk, will take place via email. Click here to find more information on contacting the Help Desk.

Have a Referral? - Help Spread the Word About AWARDS!

If you know anyone at a similar agency that would benefit from using AWARDS, we would appreciate your referral to a colleague at that agency. As a thank you for any referrals you pass along, we are happy to offer some additional benefits to your agency. Upon making a referral, you’ll have your pick between a free half day of training or a free ticket to our User’s Conference. And, if we ultimately sign a contract with the organization you refer to us, we have even more benefits you can choose from. These include, but are not limited to, multiple days of free training, free access to the AWARDS certification program, a deep dive conversation with members of our executive and product teams, and a free month of AWARDS for your agency.

Contact your Foothold representative for more details about our referral program. Or, click here to submit your referral.

Help Other Organizations Find AWARDS - Will You Leave a Review?

We want to hear from you! Have you had a good experience with AWARDS, or has someone from Foothold brightened your day? Please share it on our G2 profile. The survey takes just 5 minutes and helps other organizations find us when they are looking for software. We appreciate your time and kind words in advance!

Our Podcast Continues - Sharing In Our Caring

We’ve released Episode 8 - The Value of the Care Economy - Who’s Caring for the Carers? If you haven’t yet, click here to check out our podcast and we can't wait to hear what you think! If you're a podcast listener, please subscribe, rate, review, and help us spread the word!

 

 

Follow Us on Social Media - Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook

We’re working to expand the influence of our social media, and we need your help! Please make sure to follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook. Also, we want to celebrate all the amazing work you do, so tag us in your posts or email [e-mail] and we’ll make sure we help spread the word.