Ventura County CIE FAQs
General FAQs
- A CIE is an ecosystem comprised of multidisciplinary network partners that use a shared language, a resource database, and an integrated technology platform to deliver enhanced community care planning.
- Care planning tools enable partners to integrate data from multiple sources and make bi-directional referrals to create a shared longitudinal record.
- By focusing on these core components, a CIE enables communities to shift away from a reactive approach to providing care toward proactive, holistic, person-centered care. Ventura County CIE is hereinafter referred to as VCCIE.
- See our homepage for more information: https://venturacountycie.org/homepage/
- Comprehensive Care Coordination: Integrating information from various sources offers a holistic view of a client and helps providers coordinate care more effectively, ensuring clients get the appropriate services in a timely manner.
- Improved access to services: Families and clients can more easily connect with the full spectrum of county services they need, including all domains impacting wellness, which reduces barriers to access and helps ensure no critical needs are overlooked.
- Enhanced Communication: CIE facilitates improved communication between providers, ensuring everyone involved in a client’s care is on the same page, leading to more consistent and continuous support, and reducing the chance of service gaps or duplications.
- Personalized Support: CIE allows for tailored care to build a family/client’s strengths and meet their needs. Comprehensive data lets providers develop more personalized care plans, centering on the family/client.
- Early Intervention and Prevention: By sharing data and identifying patterns in data, CIE can help providers intervene earlier in situations that might get worse, preventing more serious problems and improving long-term outcomes.
- Empowerment and Engagement: Client empowerment increases when they have access to their own information, understand the resources available to them, and get to choose which needs to be addressed. This in turn can lead to more preventive involvement in their own care since they can more easily access services.
- Efficiency and Resource Optimization: Reducing service duplication and streamlining processes, CIE allows agencies to utilize their resources more effectively, helping clients/families receive quicker responses to their needs.
- Any nonprofit community organization serving Ventura County clients can join the CIE.
- The organization does not have to be exclusively located in Ventura County, so long as it is currently serving the Ventura County community.
- Some examples of this might be an organization with a smaller branch location in Ventura and a main office in another region. Or an organization located in another region that offers virtual services to Ventura County residents.
- At present, there is no fee to join the VCCIE. It is free for all public and nonprofit organizations serving Ventura County clients.
- Some costs may be incurred during onboarding by spending time on meetings and training that prepare your organization for go-live. This type of cost is supported by our Onboarding Assistance Program (OAP) which is covered in the Onboarding section below.
Data Privacy FAQs
- Client data is only included on the CIE if the client has explicitly consented to sharing data.
- This consent is received (or not received) at the point of service and is documented in the CIE platform.
- Confirmation of consent is required as part of the VCCIE workflow. This means that without consent, a client profile cannot be created, and a referral cannot be submitted through the VCCIE.
- A client can revoke their consent at any point after it has been provided.
- An anonymous profile can be created for any client who wants a referral submitted through the VCCIE but without their identifying information.
- Note that some minimal information like phone numbers may be required for the service provider to contact the anonymous referee.
- The VCCIE platform is housed in a HIPPA-secure environment that is audit-compliant.
- All users of the VCCIE are professionals who are subject to the VCCIE data use agreement, outlining compliance and appropriate use of the system.
- CIE data is not publicly available. Only authenticated system users are able to access client data. Sensitive data is hidden from all users by default and is only accessible to those with specific permission to access it.
- The VCCIE is a role-based platform, meaning that different types of data are viewable by users with different roles.
- Sensitive data is hidden from all users by default. It is visible only to users who have been granted access to view that type of data.
- Some examples of sensitive data categories are substance abuse, domestic violence, or immigration status. A user may have access to one or more of these categories based on their role and permissions if it is required for their work.
Onboarding FAQs
- Orientation: Orientation provides an overview of the VCCIE’s purpose and commitment to the community and begins to gather information on your organization and network.
- Workflow and Integration Design: These are work sessions that determine how to incorporate your organization’s existing processes and technology (where applicable) into the VCCIE platform.
- Roles and Users Setup: This is where the VCCIE team will request a list of users and other supporting information. The VCCIE team then determines the required access roles and sets up user accounts based on these roles.
- Contracts Signed: Agreements are written and signed to formalize the partnership. These must be signed before moving on to the next steps.
- User Training: Organization staff are trained on how to use the VCCIE. The VCCIE staff will provide training materials and demos.
- Go-Live: An organization transitions to the use of the VCCIE for closed-loop referrals.
- Once your orientation is complete, the VCCIE team will continue to orient other organizations in your existing referral network.
- The VCCIE team will reach out to you and your referral network partners when that network has indicated a readiness to join.
- Your network will be invited to join once the majority of that network has been oriented and the VCCIE team is ready to bring on a new network.
- At this point, the VCCIE team will invite you to begin Workflow and Integration Design.
- The OAP provides financial support to qualifying organizations joining the VCCIE. It can support reimbursement of costs incurred if they are directly related to onboarding.
- This includes things like training and workflow/system integration meetings.
- Labor, direct, and indirect costs are permitted in most circumstances with supporting documentation and approval from VCCIE staff.
- To qualify for financial support, your organization must be a nonprofit organization.
- To apply for the OAP, your organization will need to execute an agreement with the Public Health Institute (fiscal sponsor of the VCCIE) by submitting a budget and statement of work identifying the need and expected outcomes.
- The OAP is made possible by the support of various funders. Funding for this program may be limited to early adopters of the CIE.
- If your organization would like to integrate its existing technology platform(s) with the VCCIE, that technology vendor may charge its own integration fee. Integration fees from outside technology vendors are not covered by the OAP.
- There are two types of system users: one who submits referrals and one who receives them to provide services.
- You may have users in your organization who perform both of these roles.
- If your organization submits referrals, you will want the individual(s) who do that submission to be system users.
- This user will be able to create a client profile if one does not exist, create new referrals for a client and view referral history, etc.
- If your organization receives referrals, you will want someone who intakes or processes those referrals to be a system user.
- This user will receive a notification when a referral is received and will be able to accept or decline the referral, as well as update the status and notes on that referral.
- There is not a limit on how many users an organization may have on the CIE, however, only individuals who will be actively and consistently performing the tasks mentioned above should be registered to use the VCCIE.
- The VCCIE houses protected client data. It is imperative that users of the system are individuals that have the appropriate clearance to access PHI and PII and have a thorough understanding of HIPPA and other compliance regulations. All users of the system are subject to the VCCIE data use agreement.
- If a user is no longer a part of your organization, please notify VCCIE staff so that their login can be removed.
- You may add or remove users at any time. Your organization may want to go live with one or two users and then expand to additional users if necessary, as time goes on and needs change.
- The VCCIE team will conduct thorough training with users from your organization.
- Written training guides will be provided to your organization which can be included in your existing SOPs, in new hire training, etc.
- Before go-live, a demo will be performed with your organization to walk through each step of the process live. Your users will now have the opportunity to see workflows in real-time and ask questions.
