Case Management: Making Parenting Easier

Sitting on the couch after a dinner celebrating my first Mother’s Day as a mom-to-be, my water broke. Six and a half weeks early. We were shocked, to say the least. On the way to the hospital, after calling my parents and in-laws, I called my supervisor to tell him the baby was too excited to wait any longer. His strict orders: Forget about work. Focus on the baby.

While I followed his directions, my mind began to wander while sitting in the hospital day after day. I couldn’t help thinking about the value a Case Management solution could bring a new parent.

Our daughter had to spend time in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) because she was born so early. When we were first admitted to the NICU, nurses gave us all sorts of information explaining what causes jaundice, what apnea is, etc. In addition, we had paperwork from multiple insurance companies, applications for a social security number and birth certificate, and countless other forms to keep track of. I kept all these papers in an overstuffed folder. Any time I needed that information, I had to dig the folder out of the drawer and sort through everything.

At Naviant, my job is to help our customers escape the plight of inefficient processes that are bogged down by too much paper. So naturally, I found myself wishing I could manage all of the papers, and follow up items, electronically. With a Case Management application, configured to my needs, I could have scanned all the documents that I had into the system. Once the paper was eliminated, I could have accessed the information from my mobile phone, kept a log of phone calls and email correspondences, and set reminders to follow up on specific items all within the same application.

With any newborn, parents are asked to keep a log of how much the baby eats, how many diaper changes they have, and how many naps they are taking. But, as you can imagine, they monitor even more in the NICU. While the nurses kept great notes in their system, certain aspects were still very manual.

If we had a Case Management system, we could’ve:

• Logged all her vital information into the application when caring for our daughter
• Provided access to the data for nurses
• Setup reports to visually represent the data saved in the system
• Generated a report to show our daughters growth graphically

Now that we are home from the hospital, with a very happy chubby baby, our use for a Case Management solution would be much more fun!

If we had a Case Management system, we could:

• Manage our baby registry
• Use reminders to make sure all our thank you notes are completed
• Store all the pictures of our daughter
• Easily share pictures with family and friends through an email integration
• Continue to track her growth after each doctor’s appointment
• Manage the flurry of paper and artwork that comes from daycare…and eventually school

My husband and I made it through the first few months of parenthood just fine without a Case Management solution. After working for Naviant and helping our clients become more efficient, I find myself wanting to escape the constant stream of paper and lack of accessibility to information. Now that I am back, I can start helping businesses build efficient processes, even if I can’t always do the same with my personal life!