County launches mobile app to accelerate applications for critical support services

This digital transformation win aligns with the county’s core mission to provide quicker access to support services.

This Genus Technologies customer is the human services division (“Division”) of one of the top 50 most populous counties in the US. The Division’s core mission is to improve the health of all county residents and provide needed support services to the local populous.

To receive those support services, county residents had to go to their designated offices to fill out applications and/or submit supporting documentation. Other times, field workers gathered the documents from residents and were then responsible for the handling the documents until they were received in the scan center. The Division recognized the burden and risk of this information collection process and created a long-term vision to replace its outdated systems. This included technology that would remove barriers to services and help residents receive all the support services they need.

“ Prior to mobile, it took about 24 hours to get the paperwork processed, scanned up into the system of record, and now we’re doing it in about 45 seconds.”
- Administrative Manager

The challenge

In order to replace the very manual process of transporting and processing documents, the Division chose a mobile enablement project in its Long-Term Support program to begin executing its vision.

In the support program, human services field workers meet county residents who need services in their homes. The field workers often need to collect applications and supporting documents, make a copy and then submit them for scanning by the county’s central services department. The scanned documents are loaded into the county’s IBM FileNet electronic case file system of record. Residents cannot receive services until the needed documentation has been entered into the case file system.

This intermediate step from application to submission extended the time it took for residents to get needed services, burdened field workers with unnecessary responsibilities for handling and returning documents, and wasted field workers time on non-productive tasks.

Streamlining the process with a mobile application eliminated the burden of document handling and would allow the Division to offer services faster and meet the Division’s core mission. The Division decided to have field workers use county-owned phones on-site in resident’s homes to capture images of key documents. The goals were to:

• Expand and improve county services to residents
• Increase convenience, safety, and access to services for county residents
• Expedite submission into the electronic case file in a safe, secure, and cost-effective manner
• Use connectivity to allow field workers to deliver services in nontraditional ways while preserving security for resident and county data

The solution

The Division turned to its existing Kofax TotalAgility® (KTA) application as the foundation for its solution and selected Genus as the professional services partner to deliver the mobile application solution. Genus was selected for the expertise and proven successes with KTA and IBM FileNet solutions. This knowledge was crucial for the complex integration with the county’s electronic case file system.

Genus utilized the Kofax Mobile Software Development Kit to provide the mobile document capture functions. The Division took a phased approach to introducing the solution Genus created to the field workers. After testing, the county selected a group of “power users” with high documentation submissions needs. Following the success of the pilot project, the county rolled out the mobile application to all 450 of its social workers, along with the training necessary for field workers to use the new mobile app Genus created.

The results

The Division saw nearly instant positive results with their mobile capture solution, including:

• Faster validation of benefits for residents — (minutes vs. days)
• Reduced security risks of the paper document chain-of-custody
• Eliminated paper document retention and destruction requirements
• Enablement of more effective referrals for other available services
• Real-time submission and processing confirmation with batch and tracking information
• Increased worker and resident confidence in the system
• Creation of an effective model to handle forms and exception handling for the county’s 3,500 document form set
• Data security and regulatory compliance including HIPAA requirements

Software solution

• Kofax TotalAgility®
• Kofax Mobile Capture™
• Kofax Mobile Capture SDK

To learn more about Intelligent Automation, please contact sales@genustechnologies.com

‍