Powering stronger outcomes for vulnerable populations

Background

Catholic Social Services (CSS) of Anchorage, Alaska’s mission is to compassionately serve those in need, strengthen individuals and families, and advocate for the common good. They provide emergency shelter, case management, homeless and supportive family services, and more to individuals experiencing homelessness, refugees and immigrants, families in crisis, and people with disabilities.

Customer profile

Users: 200+
Product: Bonterra Apricot
Sector: nonprofit sector
Vertical: health and human services

Challenges

As CSS grew, they needed to level up their data management protocols to serve people better, secure more funding, and remain compliant with outside agencies tracking their progress.

“Strong data goes a long way in telling our impact story. We strive to show supporters, public officials, and donors how our programs are changing people’s lives and what that means for the community at large. This is data that is actionable and can pave the way for program expansion, community support, policy changes, and more funding to provide services for vulnerable populations.” Molly Cornish Community Engagement Director

Before implementing Apricot, CSS was not electronically documenting their case management work, making it difficult and time consuming to track outcomes. Team members across departments had to track down, collate, cross reference, and rifle through files to build an accurate picture of a participant’s status, progress, and outcomes. Additionally, producing reports to showcase their impact story, meet various compliance requirements, and secure more funding was challenging, often taking staff members hours to produce a single report.

Outcomes

Reduce report time for some programs from 20 hours to five minutes. Reduced Medicare reporting time by 75 percent, enabling them to bill more than $1 million annually for Medicaid services. Reducing Homeless Management Information System data entry training by 72 hours, empowering new staff to enter data on day one.

By transitioning to Apricot, CSS can more easily document case information, track the data points they need, and see if a participant meets the requirements for a program. Their data is easy to access, uniform, and accurate, saving staff time and improving service delivery. With a digital solution, CSS implemented staff permissions, ensuring sensitive participant information is secure and their privacy and dignity maintained. Configurable dashboards and features allow CSS to seamlessly track and access the data they need to meet Medicaid, Housing and Urban Development, and Health and Human Services requirements and easily make changes to the data points they are tracking as requirements evolve. Finally, staff are empowered to access accurate, timely information on program impact, community outcomes, and more to tell the story of how CSS is making a difference every day — helping them quickly respond to data inquiries and make data-driven decisions about programming.

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