Mary is a 7 year old white female, who lives in a homeless shelter with her mother who has had a long history of being physically abused by her male partners. Mary’s mother is also on medication for bipolar disorder and has a co-occurring diagnosis of alcoholism.
Mary has been in and out of homeless shelters and women’s shelters since she was 4 years old. She is often absent from school and has severe attachment issues due to long term exposure to her mother’s alcoholism and her exposure to serial traumatic events.
Mary and her mother qualify for Medicaid, and fortunately the social service agencies involved in Mary’s life has assisted Mary and her mother in applying for Medicaid. The social service agencies have also referred Mary and her mother to a behavioral health provider for her mother’s medication management and alcoholism treatment.
The homeless shelter case manager recently made sure Mary attended her 7 year wellness visit at a local pediatric office. During the visit, the pediatrician used a system called NavWell to understand more than the basic wellness routine. NavWell helped the pediatrician understand the severity of Mary’s anxiety resulting from trauma exposure and learned about Mary’s mother and her struggles with alcohol, domestic violence, food insecurity, and homelessness.
NavWell presented the pediatrician with real time data that was collected in the waiting room to understand the severity of the problems that Mary is suffering from. NavWell also received data from the homeless shelter case management system (Caseworthy) that is collecting case management data on Mary. The pediatrician learned that Mary’s mother is on a medication management routine at a prominent behavioral health provider in the area, and (in-turn) uses NavWell to refer Mary to the same behavioral health provider for Family Based Support Services and treatment for anxiety.
NavWell collected data at the pediatrician’s office and provided decision support. NavWell also received data from Caseworthy that helped the pediatrician see how long Mary and her Mother have been homeless. This information was shared because Mary’s mother agreed to a release of information and NavWell has an electronic bridge called an application program interface (API) with Caseworthy. NavWell also pushed and received data to and from the behavioral health provider Mary was referred to for trauma exposure, attachment disorder, and anxiety disorder. The data that is shared among providers and social services is essential to improving lifelong outcomes for Mary.
NavWell versus Caseworthy: Comparing Apples and Oranges
System Needs versus Agency Needs
- NavWell is completely customized to address the results of a needs assessment that pointed to gaps in integrated healthcare.
- Caseworthy is an off-the shelf case management system that is specifically designed to be used in social services, not physical health or behavioral health.
System of Care data sharing versus Social Service Centric data collection
- NavWell is designed to inform all systems involved in the care or a child or family.
- Caseworthy is focused on one the social services system.
Exchange versus Collection
- NavWell is designed to help exchange information between physical, behavioral, and social service providers.
- Caseworthy is designed to capture data to help social service agencies manage their cases.
Behavioral Health Focus versus Social Service
- NavWell has built valid and reliable assessment tools that are backed by science for physical health providers who have requested them to assist in understanding and treating behavioral health problems.
- Caseworthy has an application builder as part of their off the shelf system that allow folks to build whatever they want.
Science to Service versus Social Service
- NavWell has a science to service mission.
- Caseworthy has a social service case management mission.
Data Hub versus Data Source
- NavWell will connect to major data management systems that play a role in collecting data for service providers.
- Caseworthy is hopefully going to be one of the major data management players in the social service system that NavWell receives data from.
Integrated Care versus Human Service
- NavWell is designed to facilitate and guide a common assessment and treatment language and encourage uniformity and reliability in both psychometric and communi-metric theory and practice for physical health and behavioral health providers.
- Caseworthy is designed to help social service agencies build a data collection platform that works for their agency.
