Challenges:

• Information Black Hole: FSA laboriously retrieved information from chart rooms filled with over 15,000 paper charts, many of them inches thick. Client billing slips entered into the county’s recording and billing system were often “lost” in acres of paper in chart rooms, rendering the agency completely dependent on the county’s system. Chart audits were time-consuming and unreliable.
• Reporting Nightmare: FSA needed to address the varied reporting requirements for each of its 34 programs and 66 funders. Lost Earned Income: During external audits, FSA lost public funding if client data or service delivery records were incomplete, missing, or in some way incorrect.
• Time Drain: Clinicians were spending 60 minutes filling out paperwork for every 10 minutes of client face time.
• Measurement Vacuum: FSA had no standardized measurements for treatment efficacy, leaving treatment management at its most basic anecdotal level. The agency could not reliably measure clinician or program productivity.
• Minimal & Outdated Technology: FSA had old PCs, one for each of its 34 programs, usually gathering dust in various corners of the agency. Ten employees had email accounts. Most clinicians had never used a computer.

Solution:

FSA chose Exponent Partners to analyze and document the agency’s business processes; design, build, and roll out an automated case management system (CIRCE) using the Salesforce.com Enterprise Edition application platform; provide training; and create a user support structure within the agency.

Results:

• CIRCE is FSA’s “virtual” chart room filled with client data, treatment notes, and billing information that can no longer be buried in files or misplaced, making FSA audit-proof.
• Time spent doing paperwork was cut in half, freeing up clinicians to provide additional services or to receive ongoing training in current evidence-based treatments.
• Clients benefit from more and higher quality services, and funders get more for their money as less clinician time is spent on overhead (paperwork) activities. CIRCE provides real-time operational reporting, eliminating the two-month wait for county reports.
• FSA can now measure individual client outcomes and adjust treatment accordingly; track clinician, program, and division productivity; perform reliable self-audits; and take a more active role in research studies.

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“For the first time, we’ll have real time feedback with a system that tracks the goals and objectives for each client. And for the first time, we’ll know exactly just how successful we are.”

Bob Bennett,
CEO, FSA

“CIRCE makes us more independent. We’re managing our own data, forging partnerships with other organizations and research institutions, doing things we couldn’t do before.”

Melissa Moore,
Felton Institute Director, FSA and Project Director for CIRCE

Salesforce.com Foundation donated nearly 300 licenses of its flagship Enterprise Edition service to FSA to speed the application’s development and adoption. CIRCE is one of the largest and most sophisticated case management systems based on Salesforce.com that has been developed to date. In July 2007, Salesforce.com Foundation recognized FSA’s unparalleled accomplishment by awarding the agency a $10,000 “Turn It Up” grant.

“Over the past seven years, we’ve donated user licenses to more than 2,500 organizations in 46 countries,” says Steve Wright, Director of Innovation at SalesForce.com Foundation.

“And FSA is one of our outstanding recipients. It’s tremendously exciting to have this application built by Exponent Partners that could fulfill the demand for case management across the public sector. This achievement will make a national impact”