Background:

Greene County Public Health Nursing Service provides services for the health needs of Greene County, New York, residents. The clinic sees over 30 patients a day and offers several services, including immunizations, early intervention, preschool special education, family planning, home health care, and health insurance and prescription drug programs. Greene County serves the health needs of approximately 50,000 residents over a 658-square mile area.

Problem:

In 2011, Kerry Miller at Greene County wanted a more effective method to prepare for emergencies at the clinic. As a public health center, he knew that emergency preparation was especially critical. He needed a method to efficiently evacuate all employees, patients, and guests, with speed and 100 percent accuracy. At the same time, John Wynne, the IT manager, was looking for a better way to effectively track time and attendance for hourly employees, who were using paper sign-in sheets to track their hours. While the paper method was sufficient, it did not provide information such as the employee’s location or time spent with a patient. Both knew that with today’s technology, they could possibly combine their needs to find one solution that would resolve both issues.

Search:

Miller and Wynne needed to find something that could easily verify their time and attendance sheets while also providing a real-time roster of personnel in the building in case of evacuation. As they were a county-funded, non-profit business, they also needed something inexpensive. By searching online, they found Savance, a network and software provider that designs solutions that automate business functions. Savance Electronic In Out Board (EIOBoard) seemed to answer their problem of validating timekeeping. What especially interested Miller, however, was the Savance Emergency Mustering solution, which works offline and was designed specifically for emergency preparedness and evacuations.

Solution:

After examining Greene County’s needs, Savance recommended a combination of a few different Savance solutions, all working simultaneously in real-time:

• Savance Electronic In Out Board (EIOBoard)
• Savance Emergency Mustering
• Savance Time & Attendance

Savance also recommended a touchscreen kiosk for hourly employees. Office employees with computers could utilize Microsoft Outlook to schedule their day on the Savance software, using the Outlook Add-On. Employees could change their future status to ‘In a Meeting’ or ‘Sales Call’ so that EIOBoard would automatically update throughout the day. Employees that did not have computers use the touchscreen kiosk to check in and out, plus enter detailed information such as their location and the time they expect to return.

William Holland, who took over the emergency preparedness function at Greene County, took on the task of implementing the Savance system over the next several months, and worked with Savance to purchase a card reader with software and badges to integrate the solution with existing timekeeping practices. He also ensured that the emergency evacuation system was up and running so that all employees and guests could be accounted for with 100% accuracy in the event of an evacuation. “It gives us a snapshot of who is in the building, and who we know are out of the building, plus we have their contact information.”

Results & Benefits:

The Savance system has made several daily tasks simpler at Greene County. Supervisors appreciate that they can review timecards and verify the information against the EIOBoard system’s Time & Attendance module. “Now they have a better overview of hourly employee time in and out of the office,” says Holland. “Office employees can schedule their day using Outlook and the EIOBoard shows where we are throughout the day.”

After six months of using Savance EIOBoard, Savance Emergency Mustering, and the additional add-ons, Greene County is pleased with the simplicity and functionality of the new system. They have expanded the use to include Savance Visitor Management, in order to register guests and vendors at the clinic during each visit. Guests can check in at a user-friendly touch-screen kiosk at the front desk. This allows for Greene County to manage visitor times and automate the guest check-in process. While patients are managed using a separate system, Greene County is considering Savance’s HIPAA-compliant Patient Check-In solution. In the event of an emergency, employees, patients, and guests are all accounted for via the EIOBoard and the patient tracking system. “We’re not using [the Savance system] to its full potential, but we definitely use it every day. The kiosk really does what we need. It serves our purpose for monitoring time and emergency preparedness. It’s a great tool for verifying self-reporting.”