Okemos-based A.J. Boggs has developed an information system for a London, Ontario, non-profit organization, an innovation that will allow the Community Services Coordination Network (CSCN) to more effectively administer services to those with developmental disabilities.
The CSCN attempts to help integrate those with developmental disabilities into the community by providing a variety of services to these individuals. Before A.J. Boggs developed the Developmental Services Information System (DSIS), the CSCN had difficulty measuring an individual’s need, because there wasn’t a system in place to calculate this need. Each of the 50 Ontario agencies involved with administering these services had its own needs-assessment tool.
The DSIS is a streamlined system that evaluates the individual based on a support intensity scale, rather than their diagnosis.
“This is getting toward what their support needs are, and what their dreams are, and what they want to be doing,” says A.J. Boggs' CEO, Clarke Anderson.
Boggs says the new system is extremely important because it helps determine where these individuals will live.
“They’ve really been thrilled with it,” he says.
The system is in the pilot phase, and is expected to go beyond the Ontario pilot. A.J. Boggs is working with Oakland County and other Michigan-based units of government to develop something similar.
“We’re finding that states are being pressured by the Medicare agencies to standardize their criteria for supports,” he says.
Source: Clarke Anderson, A.J. Boggs
Ivy Hughes, development news editor, can be reached here.
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