Home Visiting Online
CHSES has developed Home Visiting Online, a case and program management software created to meet the implementation and research needs of Healthy Families America programs. Programs can use this system to enter data and use it to assess program impact and model fidelity. For example, programs may use this data to examine timelines of service provision milestones and ensure they meet model expectations; determine program retention for cohorts of enrollees; assess child and parent needs and service access at program enrollment and after a year of involvement; and compare disposition at discharge between relevant subgroups of participants.
Reporting
The Home Visiting Online application currently includes 126 reports. Report types include:
• Quarterly Reports: These reports provide calculations on the services provided to verify if the program is delivered as intended (e.g., the number of Home Visits conducted while in the home).
• Enrollment Reports: These reports provide calculations of the flow of client intakes and client characteristics to verify if the program is serving the targeted population (e.g., the number of families enrolled who have a child under three months of age).
• Accreditation Reports: These reports compare the services being provided with best practice standards established by credentialing bodies. These document whether a program is being delivered with fidelity.
• Performance Target Reports: These reports calculate the percentage of participants that reach a certain established performance metric (e.g., the number of children immunized within a prescribed period).
These reports are updated over time to reflect the ongoing changes required by Healthy Families America’s Best Practice Standards, and ensure the reports allow for effective program evaluation by users and administrators.
Continual Programming and Updates
Due to HFA’s updates to the model’s Best Practice Standards, and to the continually shifting web environment, the application is constantly evolving. Programming, design and research into maintaining the application is constantly undertaken by the CHSES programming staff to keep the application current and relevant and address any issues that arise.
Technical Support
In order to support programs’ ability to use the application, program staff will need technical support from CHSES staff to support their work. Technical support includes the following:
1. Password changes
2. Adding new users and programs
3. Fixing mistakes in data entry
4. Maintenance and correction of programming logic errors (e.g., “bug fixes”)
Application Security
CHSES absolutely understands the importance of data security and so has implemented the highest levels of security protocols. Only CHSES personnel who need access to the data to support the application’s implementation have such access. All staff complete data security training. CHSES uses secured storage to protect the data and uses encryption consistent with industry-wide best practices to secure the data during any transmission. The data system is NIST-800 compliant.
Software Security
• 256 bit SSL encryption on all web applications
• Account used by .NET application to access SQL Server date utilizes a ‘Least Authorized Account’
• User access is limited and can only be attained by an authorized application administrator
• Users must digitally sign a confidentiality agreement when first entering the application
• The database server (where user data is located) has limited access only to the IP address of the web server and the specific IP addresses of CHSES programmers
• Once client information is entered into the web application, it is only accessed using a case number, not the client name
• Users of one program cannot see data from other programs
The data is hosted in Microsoft’s Azure cloud environment. Azure utilizes Intrusion Detection Services, File Integrity Monitoring and Continuous Audit (Tripwire), Web Application Firewall, vulnerability assessment, Log Review and Alerting services. For additional security information concerning Azure, please visit their website here.