Multisite Treatment Center Improves Data Visibility and Operational Efficiency with Netsmart Global Administration Tool

Global multisite administration

For efficient operations, healthcare organizations with multiple locations need consistent, clean data and the ability to implement changes simultaneously across many data centers. One of Netsmart’s enterprise clients, a multisite addiction treatment provider with more than 135 locations in nine states, needed a way to better manage its 100+ separate databases.

Reimagined Consulting partnered with Netalytics, now part of Netsmart, to create a global administration tool that would provide oversight and management of all the center’s separate databases. Now the treatment center team can implement and oversee changes in a fraction of the time it used to take, creating a better experience for staff and ultimately a better patient care experience.

Opportunity

Making multiple database management efficient, consistent and simple

The multisite treatment center in question started with four outpatient facilities dedicated to treating alcohol and substance use disorders. From these modest beginnings, the center went on to acquire over 135 locations in multiple states. It’s now one of the nation’s leading providers of addiction treatment.

Early on, to manage operations the center’s IT team created database templates for each state. Each time a new location opened, it was assigned a new database.

With the expansion of the organization, however, managing all of these databases became downright cumbersome. Basic operational tasks like creating case note templates, making changes to forms, adding assessments, creating signature blocks and granting security privileges become extremely burdensome when the changes need to be made individually in more than 100 databases. “When anyone requested a change, we’d always ask, ‘How big of a deal is this?’” recalled the treatment center’s senior director of systems. “Is it worth the hours it will take to swap this form for an additional textbox or to fix a typo?”

What’s more, the more frequently a task is repeated, the more likely it is that error creeps in. With more than 100 databases that had to be individually updated, data consistency became a problem. When the treatment center switched billing systems, it had to add categories for each patient billing scenario, which meant that a single payer might be listed up to 10 different ways in the system. Not only that, but different databases might use unique naming conventions, which meant confusion and wasted time for staff who used the system.

As the senior director of systems said, “We need a tool where we can have everything, live, in one place that would allow us to make global changes. Wouldn’t that be a dream?”

Solution

Efficient management and oversight all in one tool

When Reimagined created a global administrative tool for the treatment center to gain control of its database system, it was a dream come true.

“For an organization like ours that is so data driven, clean data is essential. And we just did not have that with over 100 separate and disconnected databases,” the senior director of systems said. “Now, even though we have over 100 databases, this tool has essentially made it so we have one database, a master database that has everything in it and where we can choose what goes into each database. So, it really gives us a global view we never had before.”

Having a master tool to control its many separate databases meant that operations that used to take multiple days to complete now can be done in a fraction of the time.

Using the global administrative tool created by Reimagined, the multisite treatment center can now much more easily:

• Create or change new case note templates and add them to databases.
• Update and create forms and add them to relevant databases.
• Set up signatures for all different objects within the EHR database.
• Add assessments across all databases.
• Grant security and access privileges.

Result

Cleaner data, updated systems and satisfied staff

The treatment center has already seen a cascade of positive changes from implementing the global administrative tool. Obtaining global oversight has created cleaner data, which in turn provides more consistency and cuts down on human error. Technical staff no longer put off changing things that would have previously been too time consuming to undertake; this means that systems are more up to date and staff can work more efficiently, focusing their attention on patient care rather than wrestling with system configuration.

This has probably been one of the most successful, if not most rewarding, projects I’ve been involved in; first, because we now have a tool that allows us to manage our systems so much more easily. It allows us to clean up our data and get consistency—things we couldn’t do before because it was such a heavy lift. Second, the experience of working with Reimagined has been fantastic. They’ve been open and responsive to feedback, and the turnaround time on fixing bugs and other problems is very fast. I’ve been really, really thrilled with their responsiveness.”

Senior Director of Systems, Multisite Treatment Center