Spotlight: Expanding the OC Navigator to Support Other Orange County Health Care Agency Programs

SPOTLIGHT:

Expanding the OC Navigator to Support Other Orange County Health Care Agency Programs

Through the development work of the OC Navigator, a need emerged to expand and support other programs. The development of the following apps were supported using MHSA funding external to the funding used for the OC Navigator: (1) the OC Links/CAT Dispatch App and their administrative dashboard, (2) the O&E Referral App, (3) the O&E Universal Activity Form (UAF) Survey, (4) the Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU) Live Bed Board App, and (5) NAMI Warmline App.

OC Links and Crisis Assessment Team (CAT) Mobile Dispatch

The OC Links app facilitates core work functions for staff to manage, triage incoming calls and chats, and connect OC residents to appropriate behavioral health and social services. Staff began use of the app in February 2021, and it continues to undergo iterative improvements. Other notable updates include:

• OC Links Client Management: A new OC Links workflow has been built to gather and store information by client rather than by individual calls. This change supports OC Links Navigators’ workflow, as they have many repeat clients and need to reference their case history. OC Links v2 was launched August 9, 2022.

• OC Links Reporting Dashboard for OC administrators: To support administrators with analyzing service trends and staffing support needed, a second iteration of the OC Links dashboard displays counts of crisis calls, evening calls and total calls; CAT Adult, Child, and PERT dispatches; and O&E referrals. Administrators can filter data by date range.

• Orange County Health Care Agency security banner: In compliance with Orange County Health

Care Agency’s security policies, a security banner was built to alert OC Links, CAT, O&E Referral, and Bed Board users that they are entering a system containing protected health information (PHI). • Chorus customer support portal through Zendesk: The increased number of users and apps for Orange County Health Care Agency Mental Health and Recovery Services (MHRS) teams necessitated a customer support portal to help users access OC Links, submit questions and feature requests, and call support staff if needed.

Outreach & Engagement (O&E) Referral

The O&E Referral app facilitates mental health and housing related referrals from OC Links Navigators to O&E Supervisors, who then assign and dispatch field outreach workers. The app includes data visualizations of referrals made, closed, and total referrals open which can be filtered by date range. Custom features for O&E supervisors include a teams page that lists all outreach workers, their specialties, and number of open cases to help supervisors determine referral assignments. The O&E Referral App launched on October 21, 2021. Since then, our team has conducted user testing to inform UI improvements. Functionality to support client management was added during OC Links v2 launch to maintain consistent client information across both teams.

O&E Universal Activity Form (UAF) Survey

On June 30, 2022, a new app was launched for O&E field team members to collect demographic information and record whether clients accepted or interacted with mental health or substance use services. Orange County Health Care Agency is using the data to track how site locations and demographics change over time.

CSU Live Bed Board

The CSU Live Bed Board App is designed to coordinate client intake and manage bed occupancy between four Crisis Stabilization Units (CSUs) in Orange County. The app was first implemented at the OC Health Care Agency CSU on May 5th, 2021 and has expanded to all remaining CSUs: College Hospital (Adult), Exodus Be Well (Adult), and Exodus Be Well (Adolescent). Continued partnership and collaboration with all CSU staff has resulted in iterative improvements to the workflow, such as the addition of a historical log of the client’s journey through the CSUs. Designs have been approved by leads at all CSUs; implementation is scheduled to begin early September.

NAMI Warmline

Preliminary designs were created for a new client management system for NAMI Warmline. We are working closely with Warmline staff to streamline their current workflow and plan for future additions to the system, such as scheduling, resource list creation, and integration with OC Links. See Appendix B to read more details about the additional apps.