Florida's Aging Information and Referral Creating a Statewide Information and Referral Service and System E. Douglas Beach, Ph.D. Secretary Charlie Crist Governor Copyright © 2008 State of Florida Department of Elder Affairs. All Rights Reserved.

Overview  1988: Florida implemented Better Living for Seniors Initiative (BLS)  Primary Objective – Improve access to information about services for elders

 Established a central telephone contact in each county or region of the state for information about, and referral to, any aging network service  67 community contacts  A short-term case manager component was established to support the I&R specialist

A New Era  1991: Legislation passed creating a new government agency, the Department of Elder Affairs (DOEA), which was designated as the State Unit on Aging for OAA programs  An information clearinghouse was created to support the central access telephone service

The Future of I&R The business of the future will be information, not what you know but how to find and process what you need to know…

 Statewide toll-free number established  ELDER  Area Agencies on Aging began providing information and referral services in-house  Today there are 12 designated Elder Helplines  Two of the Planning and Service Areas (PSAs) outsource the service to organizations

Stepping Stones to Creating a Statewide System  2000: The Department of Elder Affairs adopted the AIRS standards with modifications  Helplines required to provide I&R services in accordance with standards as defined in their OAA contract by DOEA  2002: Developed a statewide online information and referral database – Elder Services Directory  2004: Aging and Disability Resource Center/Aging Resource Center initiative

Statewide I&R System  Goal of the ADRC/ARC To provide elders and their families with customer-friendly services, seamlessly and efficiently by minimizing service fragmentation, reducing duplication of administrative paperwork and procedures, enhancing individual choice, supporting informed decision-making and increasing the cost effectiveness of long- term care support and delivery systems

Essentials  Expertise in Information and Referral Service  Web-based Information and Referral System  Up-to-date Resource Database  Access Points/Local Providers

 2004: Invitation To Negotiate (ITN) for an Information and Referral Web-based System  2005: A contract was executed to implement the HelpWorks™ web-based information and referral system  HelpWorks™ piloted in the three ADRC areas January 2006 through March 2007

Service Delivery  To support the customer service aspect of the information and referral service, an I&R training manual was also developed highlighting the five modules outlined in the Assessment and Implementation Guide for OAA Information and Referral/Assistance Programs.

Leaps and Bounds to Success Jumping through hoops to improve service to Florida’s elders, their families and caregivers … Bring on ReferNet I&R software

Florida Diverse – rural and urban 60+ = 4,357,055 or 23% 85+ = 464,332 or 2.4% Average monthly contacts to Florida’s ADRC/ARCs = 30,267 Average monthly number of visits to ADRC/ARC websites = 132,121

Step 1: The decision to create a statewide database Credit – Susanica Tam

Benefits of purchasing the same I&R software system  Ability to access statewide resources  Standardization of data collection for statewide reports  Ability to transfer access to the database in a disaster  Shared cost

Unity All 11 ADRC/ARCs using one system is more important than the tool selected.

Implementation  Date range of implementation: November 2007 to the summer of 2008  Decisions could not wait until all 11 were actively using the system

Timing Factors  Training - Each PSA was trained separately; so 11 trainings took time  Conversion of resource data differed from one system to another In some areas there was extensive cleanup of resource data Some areas had to manually enter resource data  Some areas converted client data, while others did not

Credit – Susanica Tam Step 2: Creating a team of partners to implement the statewide database

Statewide Workgroup  Work is done and decisions are made by 25 participants from 11 ADRC/ARCs  Group includes one that is under contract as the Elder Helpline  There are no paid staff dedicated to this project  All ADRC/ARCs have an equal vote no matter how many staff participate in the group

Statewide Workgroup  Staff have various job responsibilities, experiences, and perspectives LAN Managers, Directors, I&R Specialists, Database Managers, etc.  This task is in addition to usual job responsibilities

Building a Team  Communication  Cooperation  Collaboration  Consensus  Concession

Step 3: Landing an operational and functional database Credit: NASA

Accomplishments  Developed a team … a working relationship among I&A/R providers statewide  Agreed on set of authorized taxonomy codes for the state

Accomplishments  Agreed on minimum data set for caller data and how to collect it uniformly for statewide reports  Agreed on style format for resource data

Accomplishments  Agreed to transfer access to local client data in Refer during a disaster  Implemented transfer during Tropical Storm Fay

Work in Progress  Website = access to resources Page format will match the colors/logos of the web page of the ADRC/ARC from which the user entered the database The group has developed uniform search terms and linked them to authorized taxonomy codes

Work in Progress  Data clean-up Setting the area served - conversion often set it incorrectly to “serves all areas” Removing duplicate entries resulting from the combination of 11 databases  Share responsibility for data updates to increase efficiency

Work in Progress  Expanding use of the database to providers and to access points such as senior centers  Linking Refer to the state’s client database (CIRTS) to avoid duplicate data entry

Contact Information  Gretta Jones, Florida Department of Elder Affairs Tallahassee, Florida Phone:  Beverly Burton, Area Agency on Aging of Pasco/Pinellas Aging and Disability Resource Center St. Petersburg, Florida Phone: