DuPage County Health Department

Challenges

The first process the DuPage County Health Department wanted to improve is the system school nurses use to report student absences from school. This is a voluntary system, so it needs to be easy and efficient for the nurses to use. The nurses report absences related to illness and the Health Department uses the information to identify trends and issues that may need to be addressed within the community. The old system was difficult to follow, was error-prone, and not widely used. And with the trend of nurses serving multiple schools, due to budget restrictions, they had less time available to spend providing this data. Once the data was provided to the Health Department, staff had to spend lots of time entering and manipulating the data to get usable information.

The second process to be improved was the Health Department’s intranet, HealthNet. It has been developed over time using basic HTML and documents. The staff was used to using it, but it was difficult to update and did not provide opportunity for collaboration on projects.

Solution

HBS worked with the Health Department on several projects to update processes using SharePoint.

For the absentee reporting system, HBS staff reviewed the current process and visited the department to observe how the data was handled. HBS suggested process improvements and technology options to improve the process and automate some of the manual work using SharePoint and Excel. HBS designed and implemented a new reporting process that is simple and easy for the school nurses to use and eliminates much of the manual data manipulation work for the department staff. The department staff is now able to spend more time analyzing and using the information for the County.

For the intranet, HBS staff analyzed the old intranet site and developed a new site design and infrastructure in SharePoint customized to the department needs. HBS provided training and documentation to help the department staff become familiar with the new SharePoint site. Site admins in each department have ownership of their section of the site and keep employees updated. As employees are becoming more comfortable with the site, SharePoint use is taking off as they find more opportunities to use it. Human Resources uses the site to provide benefit information alerts and teams are requesting SharePoint project sites to manage project work. The new SharePoint site was used to apply for Public Health Accreditation. 

"From business analysis to steady-state support, HBS was an invaluable strategic partner during our SharePoint implementation and key to the success of our project for our health agency." said Michael A. Yanez – IT Manager, DuPage County Health Department.

Impact

• Increase in the number of school nurses reporting absences
• Increase in the use of school absence information within the Health Department and the County
• Improved communication and collaboration through SharePoint intranet site

Business Needs

• Monitoring of influenza-like illnesses throughout the county’s student population provides critical data that can assist in outbreak prevention strategies. County-wide student absentee reporting process used by school nurses is time-consuming and error-prone. A simplified reporting system is needed.

• The internal communications platform, HealthNet, is difficult to update and does not support project collaboration. An updated intranet is needed.

Solution Components

• In-person observation, analysis and requirements gathering

• Development of custom SharePoint application

• Development of SharePoint intranet site

Technology

• Microsoft SharePoint

• Microsoft Excel