Yamhill County Public Health

ABOUT YAMHILL COUNTY PUBLIC HEALTH

Yamhill County Public Health, a division within Yamhill County Health and Human Services (HHS), provides publicly funded behavioral health, developmental disabilities, and public health services to all residents of Yamhill County. Through a combination of providing direct services and system coordination and development, they strive to enhance community health and safety in every part of the county.

LIFE IS GOOD

To enhance community health, Yamhill County Public Heath focuses on the public’s physical, emotional, and social well-being through services, prevention, education, and partnerships. To maintain all the coordinated programs and projects, the team relied heavily on an ad-hoc system of periodic check-ins, spreadsheet tracking, and shared documents (physical and digital ones). These processes were pivotal towards monitoring key metrics like the number of trainings facilitated in each quarter, how many individuals they reached with a particular program, and more.

BIG CHALLENGE

However, when quarterly or semi-annual reports were due to the state health department, it would be a scramble. To create a submittable report, the team had to gather all the information and tracking from the past reporting period and combine it all together. This created a recurring challenge where identifying the status of a particular program or project was extremely difficult without digging up information from multiple places and combine it all together. This time-consuming process made it nearly impossible for managers to track the progress of multiple programs staffed by numerous people. Losing clear visibility into day-to-day progress made the work more challenging and much less fulfilling. The critically important prevention work is never really ‘done’ so measuring incremental progress and wins is key to keep teams motivated and positive.

HELP ARRIVES

So, they turned to AchieveIt. With automated progress update requests, the team now has periodic reminders to refresh data and submit new project updates. This has enabled a better understanding of the work between reporting periods, not to mention saving a ton of time and energy pulling together state reports. With everything visible in one place, the team can now gauge the progress of a program or project quickly and accurately -- without having to check multiple places for information. And now managers can easily monitor all the vastly different work that’s going on within their public health department with just a few clicks.

LIFE IS EVEN BETTER

Now, with a reduced reporting burden, the team has more time to focus on serving the county instead of just tracking progress. With more time and resources, the team is more data-driven and reactive to program needs. The team can now gauge the progress of work that is often vague and very difficult to measure. And most importantly, Yamhill County Public Health can stay focused on enhancing community health in every part of the county.