DUBLIN, Ohio, Dec. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- The Robeson County Department of Social Services (DSS) in North Carolina is the first customer to implement Northwoods' new Compass CoPilot™ product. Last week, select Children Services workers at the agency began using the tablet-based software on client visits. CoPilot™ is designed to give mobile social services workers many of the timesaving efficiencies they enjoy in the office with Northwoods' Compass® software.
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"CoPilot is helping us change the way we serve our community," said Becky Morrow, director, Robeson County DSS. "Our workers will now have everything they need while working outside the agency. The sync feature alone will save so much time on administrative tasks once they are back at the agency, allowing them to focus more on their caseloads and less on indexing, filing, and transcribing notes."
CoPilot™ provides the tools that social workers need to conduct interviews and collect evidence on location in client homes or wherever they need to work. They can fill out forms and have the client sign them, access case documents and collect additional ones, record interviews, make case notes, photograph case members and living conditions, and more, all through an easy-to-navigate interface.
When workers return to the agency, they simply connect the tablet to their workstation and all information is synced automatically with the content management system. Without CoPilot™, the equivalent activities often require hours of indexing, annotating, copying, and filing. The time saved by CoPilot's automated syncing feature alone will help agencies serve additional clients while maintaining or improving customer service levels.
Robeson County DSS has used Northwoods' full suite of Compass® software products for two years and has experienced impressive efficiency gains and bottom line cost savings. The Compass® products work in conjunction with the agency's Laserfiche® document management system (serviced by One Source Document Management Solutions) to provide features and functionality that improve agency processes.
"Northwoods and One Source helped our agency save $2 million in construction costs on our new building," said Morrow. "Because our case files are now electronic, we had no need for the 15,000 square foot file room that had been proposed for storage, and the new system is helping us provide faster service to more clients."
Just a week after the official launch of the product, a second agency has also signed up to use CoPilot™. Social workers at Cabarrus County DSS, also in North Carolina, plan to start using CoPilot™ in early January.
"Today, most agencies must serve increasing numbers of clients and cases even as their budgets are being reduced," said Gary Heinze, president and CEO, Northwoods. "It is important, now more than ever, that technology solutions help social services workers do more with less. And Compass software and CoPilot do just that."
See also: Northwoods' case study on Robeson County DSS.
About Northwoods
Northwoods is a privately-held software development and services company headquartered in Dublin, Ohio. It is a customer-driven organization providing a full suite of commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) software solutions, including client scheduling and wait-line management, electronic document management, electronic forms, and workflow solutions for Health and Human Services agencies. With its Compass¨ software suite of products, Northwoods offers an unmatched level of capabilities and expertise in serving the needs of state and county agencies nationwide. Nearly 100 agencies in eight states use Compass¨ software every day. For more information, visit teamnorthwoods.com or follow us on Twitter @teamnorthwoods.
SOURCE Northwoods
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