Maryland Board of Nursing

Maryland Board of Nursing
Forms Processing License Renewal Solution

THE BUSINESS CHALLENGE

Every day we trust our personal and business affairs to professionals. The Maryland Board of Nursing knows that of all the professionals you trust, nowhere is a breach of trust more damaging than in the medical profession. That’s why the Maryland Board of Nursing takes its job of issuing licenses to the state’s RNs and LPNs very seriously.

While some subscribe to the adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” the Maryland Board of Nursing decided that even though the in-house licensing renewal system was somewhat automated, it needed improvement –documents were sometimes lost or misfiled, filing and retrieving renewal applications was time consuming and making changes to licenses was cumbersome. The business challenge mandated by the Board was to fully automate the professional licensing process for Maryland RNs and LPNs, and in addition, to maintain the educational, professional and disciplinary statistical data used to support the licensing process.

PROCESSING RENEWALS

As Lynn Kirk-Flury, Director of Information Systems at the Maryland Board of Nursing said, the main problem with the old system was control. “Previously, the Maryland Board of Nursing had one licensing database on a mainframe. There was little control over the system’s inputs, as the data entry was performed off-site by data entry clerks. You could get very little information from the database.”

Here’s how it worked. Nurses applying for a license renewal completed a “mark sense” form – a form that required them to fill in circles to indicate their responses to questions. The completed forms, along with remittances for the licenses were then sent to an offsite center where they were input into the licensing database while the system generated the license. The original forms were then sent back to the Maryland Board of Nursing offices and filed.

IMEDGE OFFERS SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS

Edge Systems’ IMEDGE technology served as the basis for the Maryland Board of Nursing’s new system. Edge Systems performed the design and integration work for the new application. Before implementing the new system, old renewal forms were redesigned to allow for hand print completion. The new system, dubbed LicensePro, includes an Intelligent Character Recognition (ICR) scanning feature that automatically reads hand-printed or typed information on each license application. After reading the form, LicensePro populates the imaging database. Based on the form type, the forms are then routed to electronic workbaskets where they are processed by the Board’s staff. The staff verifies the information on the form and makes the final decision whether to issue or reissue the license.

The Board reports that the easy-to-use LicensePro system has cured their renewal processing ills. Kirk-Flury pointed out, “The new in-house system gives us the control we need, plus it ensures that all forms are processed on time. An added benefit is our ability to quickly and correctly handle complaints and discrepancies.” In the past, when nurses called in to report that the information on their licenses was incorrect or incomplete, the Board’s staff had to go to the filing room and search for the original renewal application form. This process was extremely time consuming and inefficient. The Edge solution gives the staff complete control over the information in the image database. They can retrieve information instantly and simultaneously - a vast improvement over the old system that provided very little research ability.

While customer service improvements are appreciated, the Board adds that the new system has given them other equally impressive benefits like an electronic workflow that enables them to track the forms at any step of the process and much faster forms processing with greater accuracy. In fact, LicensePro boasts some impressive processing rates - 6,000 renewals per month at a rate of 20 seconds per renewal with an over 90% percent accuracy rate! Add to the time savings, the savings in storage space —which is expected to be cut in half over the next 5 years — and you’ve got savings that really add up for the Maryland Board of Nursing.

Kirk-Flury explains, “There are 35 people who use the system and report that it is easy to use and it makes their jobs easier too.”

MORE IMPROVEMENTS AHEAD

Impressed with the Edge solution, the Maryland Board of Nursing plans to add more functionality and capacity in the future. Along with their plans to merge the license and image databases, the Board would also like to be able to accommodate walk-in as well as on-line renewals.

Recent legislation mandating the certification of Nurses Aids adds to the Board’s workload with plans to process up to 50,000 Nurses Aid certificates a year. With the challenges that face the Board to continually improve and add to their processing capabilities, they remain confident in Edge Systems. Kirk-Flury concluded, “We are very pleased with the end product. At the end of the month, we are now able to get our work done and meet workload demands, while at the same time improving customer service and job satisfaction.”