Electronic Health Records Management Systems
UniHealth Foundation
Blue Shield Foundation, One-e-App Program Office
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power I
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power II
Clarent Corp. (now a part of Verso Technologies)

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Client: UniHealth Foundation
Project: One-e-App in Los Angeles County
Grace Consulting Services: Program Management, Technology Assessment

The challenge:
Many of the children and families eligible for Los Angeles County public health insurance such as Medi-Cal, Healthy Kids and Healthy Families often chose to go without needed health care rather than wade through the extensive paperwork and red tape of applying for benefits from multiple agencies. This not only puts a strain on county clinics and hospitals, but increases the cost and complication of patient care by having to intervene at a later, often more serious stage of illness.

To alleviate the problem, UniHealth Foundation provided the funding for the county to begin exploring One-e-App, a Web-based system already proven effective in Northern California that enables case workers to collect applicant information once and distribute it to every pertinent agency. In moving ahead with this plan, the county faced the challenge of aligning the interests of numerous unrelated stakeholder groups with divergent views and competing agendas.

The solution:
Grace Consulting laid the groundwork for implementing One-e-App and completed the project on-time and under budget. In addition to overseeing Deloitte Consulting, tasked with defining the technical and business requirements of the system, Grace prepared an implementation plan, budget, return on investment estimate, and numerous communications programs to keep all stakeholders informed, from foundations to public officials to community clinics. Additionally, Grace served as independent program manager to keep vendors accountable and as advisor to foundations on how to make the best use of their funds and existing human resources. (Top)

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Client: Blue Shield of California Foundation, One-e-App Program Office
Project: Community-Based Organization Readiness Assessment
Grace Consulting Services: Technology Assessment

The challenge:
Los Angeles County is moving toward implementing a Web-based system to help uninsured residents access public health insurance programs for which they are eligible. The new system would make case tracking easier for case workers and enable applicants to access multiple programs at once rather than having to apply to different programs individually. Unfortunately, not all community-based organizations which currently assist people to apply for such programs have the technology skills or infrastructure to take advantage of this new offering.

The solution:
Grace Consulting used a combination of public health metrics, demographic and income data to formulate an approach for conducting assessments that would deliver a better understanding of the state-of-readiness in the community to implement such a system and the funding necessary to ensure that readiness through technology upgrades or training.
With this approach in-hand and grant money from Blue Shield of CA Foundation, the One-e-App Program Office was then able to commence both on-site readiness assessments and online surveys with Los Angeles County’s community-based organizations. (Top)

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Client: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP)
Project: CIS business process mapping and requirements definition
Grace Consulting Services: Process Mapping, Business Requirements Definition
Distinction: Nominated for MBE Supplier of the Year by LADWP

The challenge:
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power desperately needed to upgrade their 30+ year-old Customer Information System, but didn’t have their CIS-related processes or business requirements in place to issue an RFP. Not only were process maps outdated, but manual workarounds were undocumented. Concurrently, the department was trying to build a Customer Relationship Management system which made the actual scope of the CIS project more ambiguous and difficult to define.

The solution:
LADWP selected Grace Consulting from among 20 larger competitors because of their superior scalability and flexibility. Grace showed the department how they could get better results for less by reconfiguring their project approach. It was the right choice ?one that earned Grace an achievement award for their problem-solving excellence, customer-focused management principles and their contagious entrepreneurial spirit. To accomplish the task at-hand ?and to do so $500 under budget ?Grace took a very structured, rigorous approach that cut through bureaucratic barriers, improved quality of the project deliverables and built strong relations with the customer service staff. In fact, LADWP was able to put the initial work of completing maps and devising requirements to task for a small unrelated upgrade and to use the information as a foundation for large-scale upgrades in the future. (Top)

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Client: Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP)
Project: Customer Information System (CIS) upgrade
Grace Consulting Services: Change Management, Technology Implementation

The challenge:
It was four months and counting until LADWP faced an expired CIS ASP contract. However, the staff was still feeling the pain of the last upgrade and was, therefore, hesitant to act and dreading the deadline.

The solution:
Grace immediately addressed the department-wide emotional roadblock by fully engaging the staff in a change readiness assessment and assuring them that their voices would be heard. Thanks to an open-minded fact-finding approach, combined with a proven track record with the department, Grace quickly built trust and turned cynicism into collaboration.

The Grace team traveled to each location to meet in person with people whose jobs would be impacted by the change in technology and documented their concerns. Grace then customized communication and training materials to address these areas of concern as well as other key skill deficiencies, building confidence among the staff and focusing the department’s scarce training resources on areas of greatest need. The conversion was a success and a proud accomplishment for all associated with it. (Top)

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Client: Clarent Corp. (now a part of Verso Technologies)
Project: CRM implementation
Grace Consulting Services: Process Improvement, Project Management on a CRM Implementation

The challenge:
With more than 400 sales representatives worldwide, Clarent was looking to double the number within 12 months. To accommodate this growth, they planned to implement Saleslogix, a customer resource management (CRM) system, which would automate tracking sales leads and activities and improve sales forecasting. However, because each sales engineer had a different style and sales approach, none could agree on how to best implement Saleslogix.

The solution:
Working with sales representatives in the United States, Grace Consulting narrowed down the sales processes to just two based on best practices — one for direct sales and the other for indirect sales through distributors and external agents. Grace also developed a sales forecasting methodology to increase the accuracy of their sales estimates in the US. After the client saw our full capabilities, the project director asked Grace to oversee all design and implementation, managing a large, diverse group of stakeholders and an external vendor (Deloitte Consulting) while effectively leveraging the company’s organizational resources. (Top)