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Posted Thursday, July 23, 2020 by Team Northwoods

Scott County Providing Social Workers Cloud-Based Software to Go Paperless

Social workers can access electronic case files from anywhere

DUBLIN, Ohio—July 23, 2020—Scott County Health & Human Services (HHS) is investing in new technology to go paperless by the end of 2020, which will help social workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and well into the future.

"We have been working on implementing a solution like this for several years. Traverse was a planned expense for this year, but COVID really underscores the need to go paperless and affirmed our decision,” said, Barb Dahl, social services director, Scott County HHS.

Scott County HHS is providing Northwoods’ software Traverse® to adult social services and child welfare social workers to collect, view and share case content from anywhere at any time. Social workers will use Traverse’s web-based application to scan and upload documents and a companion mobile app to easily take photos and complete forms during home visits.

In addition to going paperless, the solution will help Scott County HHS:

  • Provide social workers with remote access to case files in the field
  • Surface case history to mitigate risk when making safety decisions
  • Decrease duplicative work and dual data entry

"Cases are becoming more and more complex. Traverse is going to make our jobs simpler. It's going to make our work more accurate and help us to deliver services much faster," said Katie Elleraas, children's developmental disabilities supervisor.

Providing social workers off-the-shelf, cloud-based technology is in line with Scott County’s Delivering What Matters initiative that has identified the business needs for more timely, agile and effective IT services. Traverse will help meet several county IT goals, including moving to a software as a service model, implementing technologies quicker and moving away from custom built solutions. Traverse will also help meet key objectives, including improved customer experience, improved staff mobility, process improvements to drive efficiencies and increased performance and transparency through improved data management, date use and data retention.

“Workers have pressure to perform thorough assessments to address family needs. It's not uncommon for cases to cycle in and out of social services units. Important information is lost in large files and systems. The hope is we have more than an electronic record storage system, and that we have a record management system that we can sort and find information that's relevant to assessment, case planning and case decisions,” said Steve Brown, children’s mental health supervisor.

Scott County HHS purchased Traverse using the capital improvement budget through Carahsoft, a U.S. General Services Administrator Schedule contract holder.

“Traverse will enable Scott County HHS social workers to collect and access critical case history across all child welfare units so they can make informed safety decisions to protect vulnerable children and adults. We’re honored to be a partner in this amazing initiative,” said Chris McConnell, chief business development officer, Northwoods.

About Northwoods 
Northwoods develops customized, high-tech software solutions for adult & aging, child support, child welfare and economic assistance. We help state and county human services agencies do more with less and get the results they need. Nearly 45,000 caseworkers across the country use our solutions to manage, collect, view and share content and data more efficiently. As a result, agencies improve service delivery, maximize productivity, make informed decisions and achieve better outcomes. Northwoods is headquartered in Dublin, Ohio.