Jessica Watanabe, Director of Administration, Walk of Joy
Who is Walk of Joy?
Walk of Joy is a provider agency primarily in Hamilton County. We provide residential supports, day program, employment supports. We also have an agency in Joy that does consulting and training for agencies. We established our organization in June of 2008.
Why Brittco?
We started using Brittco in early 2020. We had looked at other electronic documentation programs. We previously, actually, spoke with Scott about Brittco, and during that time when we were all at home, we dug in a little bit more. We wanted to be more efficient and effective with our documentation so that we could deliver more effective and efficient services to the people we serve. We definitely had to reach them at home to support them and also to provide what DSPs needed to ensure that their needs were met and we were compliant.
The Onboarding process
Taking all of your data from paper, which is what we were using before, and uploading that into an electronic documentation system is quite an undertaking. Brittco was able to teach and train us along the way to ensure that we were able to do that efficiently, and then offer the training and support to everyone in our organization.
We rolled it out in different sessions. So, we started our first quarter with looking at uploading all the information and beginning the tracking of our time and mileage. We used both the HPC entry, home and personal care, as well as the time clock. We got very efficient at that. We used a lot of Zoom training time with each of the sites, and we also used that time as house meetings and support during the pandemic.
After rolling out each section, we offered ongoing support, one-on-one, or in-group settings so that people could execute the efficiency and reliability of that program. We, then, also trained our administrative staff on how to oversee that, run reports, utilize that more and more along the way. We were very happy with that transition, and actually offer support to other agencies that are considering switching to Brittco, as well as we recommend Brittco to agencies that we do consultation with.
And we definitely wanted to introduce Lori Corness, who is a DSP for our agency who's been with us for quite some time. So, with that, I'm going to let Lori share her story with you.
Lori Corness, DSP, Walk of Joy
DSP Lorri resisting change
I've always just been a caregiver. I hated computers, hated technology. When we were first told that we would have to do this, I'm like, "Oh, no." We started off taking classes. I wasn't too sure about the classes. I missed some classes, and then I got thrown in around, I guess, '19. 2019 is when we started, because I had skipped out on the classes. I didn't want to know it. I thought that I would be able to get around it and continue doing it on paper. I got away with that for a while, logging everything on paper, and then it was just cut short all of a sudden in probably about 2020, '21 maybe.
Finding out it’s not so bad
And I couldn't get away with it anymore, so I had to absolutely get on Brittco, learn it, call and ask questions to any and everybody in the organization, and I got the basics of it. And it wasn't so bad. It was actually better.
Discussing the benefits of Brittco
We had the laptop right there on site. We could communicate with messages to each other. Our time wasn't lost or misplaced. It was right there in the system. Now, I'm able to check so much. I can run reports. I've learned a lot, and I'm still learning. And every day I learn more about Brittco, and I'm like, "Wow." We can learn the client's schedules, meetings, if they have upcoming appointments or doctor's appointments, whatnot, and I just absolutely love it. It's just an easy, quick way to do everything besides communicating with everybody and having to call on people that's busy.
The ease of learning Brittco
I can just figure it out for myself, and some things I have figured out for myself by just playing with it. You can just play with it and almost figure out anything you need to figure out about the client, about what their needs are. I love how their plan is on there. Instead of reading the thick packet, it's right on there. You can just go to whatever you want to go to instead of going through the papers.
Wouldn’t change it for anything
My experience was I thought I would hate it. I ran from it. I didn't think it was something for me. I even thought I would lose my job over it because I just wanted to be a caregiver, and I've absolutely become a big fan of it. So, I wouldn't change it for anything.
