Challenges to Improving Early Intervention

By Ted Hill

Since March 2020, the health care industry has faced unprecedented challenges. In 2022, the pandemic continues to pose serious challenges, including managing a sudden increase in patients and increased data from new variants of the virus. Nevertheless, practitioners should keep an eye toward the future and use lessons from the pandemic to improve health care innovations.

For example, how can social workers use early intervention (EI) to improve case management and access to services? Data processes and access remain largely unchanged, even as many other health care services become digitized. Digital transformation will be important for overcoming the top challenges faced by EI in 2022.

However, digital transformation can be challenging. Change—whether incremental or massive—causes nearly everyone stress, and this stress can cause some social workers to resist using new tools even if they improve their workflow. This can be doubly troubling for employees who are reluctant to use technology changes spearheaded by management.

The key to overcoming these hurdles is open and honest communication from management when introducing a new digital platform. Team leaders must outline the organization's goals and objectives clearly. But it is also essential that the staff understands how these new digital solutions will improve their work or make tasks more manageable.

Comprehensive training can help alleviate many concerns, but it can be beneficial to have user "champions" who can provide one-on-one help until everyone is comfortable with the new system. Embarking on a digital transition is not a one-time project; it requires long-term planning and several steps to accomplish. Each step has its unique challenges, but working through them can lead to success. It is also important to celebrate successes as they happen. Such positive reinforcement can help staff adapt and continue using the new systems.

Here are five challenges that a digital transformation can help rectify.

Remaining Paper-Based in a Digital Time
One core issue is unequal digital transformation. Although public health systems may have technology-based workflows or databases, digitization has yet to transform the entire process. This means that core workflows are interrupted by outdated processes. Client or patient data can be lost, incomplete, or structured incorrectly when transferred from paper to digital and back again. This results in delays, errors, or inaccurate reporting and results.

To overcome this challenge, better systems are needed to ingest, standardize, and report data with digital processes to reduce human error. Integrated systems from the point of referral to eligibility to transition can help create accurate, actionable data for social workers. When data are manually ingested, they can be incorrect and incomplete, making them unusable for reporting and identifying trends. Because these systems require manual labor that burdens workers and agencies, they are not scalable. With data management systems, data ingestion and standardization are automated. This saves time and effort, reduces errors, and improves analytics and reporting capabilities.

Transitioning From Individualized Family Service Plans to Individual Education Plans
Using data from several different systems can result in critical information being lost. This is especially problematic when dealing with a child's educational pathway. The missing information could result in overlooked trends and vital information not being integrated into their education plan.

Formalized systems are needed to ensure that therapy plans are on track and timelines are met for transitions throughout childhood. Reporting requires time-consuming manual efforts that could be better invested elsewhere. Instead, capturing information organically throughout the process can help people understand where they stand within the transition progression. Social workers can share this information among agencies and parents to ensure targets are being met for transition timelines. There's also the ability to integrate solutions with local education agencies to share information throughout every stage of a child's education.

Professional Development
States are beginning to look for ways to support the development of their EI and early education professionals through training and education, including platforms that can track and share opportunities for professional development across states and organizations. Effective platforms can ensure wider access to professional development or workforce innovation.

Local leaders desire the capacity to recognize employees who are seeking opportunities for continual development, and states want the ability to cross-reference professional development trends with children’s outcomes at the EI programs.

The solution is to create an integrated platform that captures the data from EI professional development and allows users to see how this relates to the outcomes for children in the region.

Equity
Access, equity, and diversity are some of the issues faced by EI management. These challenges are being spotlighted throughout the pandemic as children contend with telehealth and the struggle to access critical EI services. The pandemic has amplified the issues facing communities with disproportionate economic and access challenges.

States seeking solutions to address these issues need to consider new systems that leverage innovation. This involves social workers educating parents and guardians on how to use and enroll in EI services and how to recognize that their children may need these services. For example, New Jersey recently introduced an equity in education initiative to provide parents with language and resources to address their children's specific challenges.

There's also a need for local education agencies and school districts to improve transition processes. Using data-driven approaches, governments can understand where inequities lie and suggest and create possible solutions, with an eye on other states that are successfully improving EI equity.

Consumer Access
Since the beginning of the pandemic, access has been a serious issue. But even as far back as 1981, the National Institutes of Health discussed how access can define consumers' relationship with services. More recently, the challenge is how social workers can keep parents and guardians informed about what is happening with their child during treatment. Although they may be unable to be physically present at every session, parents and guardians want full access to what occurs to understand and track their child's milestones.

The pandemic has brought to light the virtual options for parents and guardians to interact with EI staff and services. Portals can help parents access basic case information, helping them see and update inaccuracies, provide consent, and even review the availability or accessibility of the services that would benefit their children. With digital solutions, social workers can share programs, notes, data, successes, and efforts with parents and guardians to ensure that they not only are up to date but also understand their child's progress.

Lessons Learned
The future is data. Capturing organic data provides better insights while supporting improved policy decisions for social workers. Ensuring that the right people have access to the right data creates connections and allows for process improvement. This means that governments need to focus on improving the digitization process for EI, from referrals and intake to transitions. Not only will this improve processes, access, and equity but it also will ensure that all children needing EI receive the best care for their unique challenges.

— Ted Hill is a senior vice president at SSG, where he specializes in digital transformation and interoperability in the public health sector. He has successfully led a variety of information technology initiatives, including early intervention, health care exchange, and the Medicaid Management Information System, and manages programs that ensure the effective implementation of systems and business process innovation for the agencies SSG partners with. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in political science and government from MIT.