My journey from paper to electronic documentation- The Search

In 2015, I was working at a non-profit agency in Iowa. I had just completed a major two-year project to erect the first wheelchair accessible playground in the city! This was a huge feat that exhausted every ounce of energy I had. It was a proud moment for me, as a young, up and coming woman in the community to successfully complete this massive project. I was looking forward to relaxing a bit and coasting on this new accomplished success, but only one week later, my boss calls me into her office………

“Medicaid will be privatized in Iowa within the next 6 to 12 months. We need to switch to an electronic documentation system immediately.”

I let her words sink in for a minute before I burst into tears. I felt like I had just had a weight lifted from my shoulders to turn around and have more weight added. I asked if my boss thought it was really possible to make such a dramatic change in such a short amount of time. How was I going to find the right software? Learn and understand it? Teach it to my coworkers and train all my 400+ employees within 6 months? I didn’t even know if we had enough computers for this task! I was terrified!

One colleague and I started our google searches. Within a short time, we realized we had NO idea what we were doing. We spent countless hours crying, looking at websites, requesting information and demos, crying, watching webinars, reading reviews, and, did I mention the crying? At the time, I had no clue how IT suave I would become!

We were able to narrow our search down after many webinars that all blurred together. We brought in the big-wigs to make the final decisions as we were getting down to the wire, time-wise. We landed with Quantum Solutions. Thank goodness the search was all over! We swiftly met our Quantum team and we prepped for implementation. As we mapped out the process of transferring information and setting up our new system, I was excited about the future, nervous about the ease of transition, and relieved I was done with big projects for a while!

But then again……. someone needed to be the Agency’s System Administrator for the new software………

Stay tuned for the rest of the story………The Year of Implementation.