Case Study

Help Me Grow Inland Empire

Connecting systems with a custom Drupal form

Who is Help Me Grow IE?

Help Me Grow IE connects families with young children to screening and intervention services dedicated to supporting early child development. Sponsored by Loma Linda University Children’s Health Program, Help Me Grow IE provides parents with effective resources and referral pathways to ensure developmental screenings are easily accessible and available to everyone.

The challenge

Help Me Grow IE was in need of building a bridge between their site/services and Epic–the medical records software company responsible for housing 78% of patient records in the US. In effect, this bridge would consist of a user-friendly form that allows providers (doctors, nurses, etc.) to quickly build parent-child profiles that are then instantly connected with Epic’s system.

The situation 

Filling the enrollment gap with custom Drupal development

Sponsored by Loma Linda University Children's Health Program, Help Me Grow IE plays a crucial role in connecting families with young children to screening and intervention services for supporting early child development. Its mission is to ensure that developmental screenings are easily accessible and available to everyone, providing parents with effective resources and referral pathways for identifying and addressing developmental issues early.

Prior to Help Me Grow IE and Hounder’s collaboration, neither Help Me Grow IE or the medical providers they work with possessed the kind of automated functionality needed to quickly enroll children in need of developmental care. This project’s success would leverage Drupal CMS's custom capabilities to deliver the level of automation needed to level up the important work the folks at Help Me Grow IE do every day. 

Our process

Automating providers' ability to create parent-child profiles

As with all of our projects, Hounder conducted a needs assessment to thoroughly analyze the requirements and objectives for Help Me Grow IE, medical providers, and the families they help.

To ensure a collaborative approach, a cross-functional team was formed, composed of key representatives from both Help Me Grow IE and Hounder. This team worked together to define project goals, scope, and timelines, while also identifying key functionalities and features required for the project. 

This assessment identified the need for a user-friendly form that allows for the efficient creation and transfer of parent-child profiles from the Help Me Grow IE site. This form would automate providers’ ability to create patient profiles, effectively ensuring children are visible within Epic’s system and setting them up to receive the kind of care they need. 

How it works

Leveraging Drupal’s security and customizability

With its customizability, security, scalability, integration capabilities, accessibility, and strong community support, Hounder’s development team resolved to build the form in Drupal. Its flexible platform allows for use-case-specific forms, while robust security measures protect sensitive patient data. Drupal's scalability handles large volumes of data and traffic, and its integration capabilities facilitate seamless connectivity with Electronic Health Records (EHR) systems. 

Developing Help Me Grow IE's seamless sign-up

The form data itself is supported and forwarded between Help Me Grow IE and Epic’s custom APIs. When a provider submits the necessary parent-child relationship information, the data is then cross-checked with Epic’s data to determine whether their profile already exists. If not, all necessary questionnaires and corresponding resources are provided to quickly create the parent-child profile. 

The design and development phase involved engaging software developers with expertise in integrating systems and building secure data transfer mechanisms. Hounder designed an intuitive and user-friendly form built to capture essential parent-child relationship information, aligning it with Epic's data structure and system requirements. Data validation mechanisms were implemented to minimize errors and maintain data integrity, while robust security measures were put in place to protect sensitive information during transmission and storage.

Design and development

  • Designed a user-friendly form within HMG that allows providers to efficiently build parent-child profiles.

  • Ensured seamless integration with Epic's system, allowing for instant connection and synchronization of the profiles.

  • Implemented robust data validation mechanisms to maintain accuracy and integrity

Testing and quality assurance

  • Conducted extensive testing to ensure smooth data transfer and integration between HMG and Epic.

  • Verified the accuracy and completeness of parent-child profiles.

  • Performed rigorous quality assurance checks to identify and address any technical issues or discrepancies.

Wrapping up with deployment and optimization

Implementation and deployment

We developed a comprehensive rollout plan focusing on user training, system integration, and support. Close collaboration with Help Me Grow IE stakeholders ensured a smooth deployment across all relevant departments and facilities. 

Evaluation and optimization

After implementation, the performance and effectiveness of the bridge system were closely monitored. Feedback from providers and stakeholders was gathered to identify areas for improvement. Periodic assessments were conducted to ensure ongoing compliance with data privacy regulations and optimize system functionality.

The Result: The most important work we do

Helping Help Me Grow IE give parents and children the fast, attentive care they need

Throughout the entirety of this project, Hounder’s gusto and resolve was relentlessly dedicated to enhancing early child development support and improving the quality of care Help Me Grow IE and affiliated medical providers give to families.

Through a systematic and collaborative process, Help Me Grow IE successfully established a Drupal form that facilitates the seamless integration of parent-child profiles between HMG and Epic. This integration empowers medical providers to effortlessly create and connect profiles from Help Me Grow IE's site, ensuring the efficient and accurate transfer of information to Epic's system. 

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