In our more than a decade-and-a-half of experience in the juvenile justice field, we have found many, many pieces of our software can be used with no modification whatsoever for every facility we work with. However, there is one piece that always seems to require customization. Each facility has its own unique layout and its own individual room configuration. As anybody who has worked on a software implementation can attest to, customization means an increase in scope and cost.
If each facility requires a custom room assignment module in its facility management software and custom software development leads to higher costs then the inevitable conclusion has been that this type of software is either expensive or impossible to obtain. So, the question for any organization historically has been which do you sacrifice? Your budget… or your software functionality?
Fortunately, at Handel we strive to provide standard solutions in order to reduce the cost of our product and the ever present risk of scope creep. We have worked to develop a system that is flexible enough to adapt to any facility, big or small, yet retain enough standard functionality to maintain the rigid standards required by juvenile justice facilities.
We have accomplished this with our innovative Facility Layout Management Tool. Below is an example facility that is split into separate living units.
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Each facility starts with its own “Base Building Unit”. Whether your facility is separated into pods, living units, wings, or buildings Ritetrack can take that verbiage and begin a virtual construction of your facility. Each of these Base Building Units may then be broken down into sub-units.
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In this example, Living Units are broken down into Rooms. However, your facility may use different terminology. As with the Base Building Units, sub-units may also be altered at the click of a button to match the existing terminology used in your current facility. In turn, each sub-unit may itself be broken down into more granular units if needed.
Additionally, different areas of a facility may have different layout configurations. For example, a standard living unit may be broken into separate wings while a supervision or medical unit may consist of a single area with beds. RiteTrack’s innovative functionality can build out these distinct layouts with no additional customization.
This flexible yet elegant design allows another powerful piece of functionality for users of the system. At a glance a RiteTrack user can see exactly what vacancies exist in the facility. In the second image Living Unit 100 is displayed with 8 rooms, each of which can hold one resident. Rooms displayed in blue are vacant and thus have one vacancy. Rooms displayed in purple currently have a resident assigned to them and thus have no vacancy in this example. Rooms displayed in black are closed rooms and are not able to house a resident. As we can see, at a quick glance, there are six vacant rooms in Living Unit 100, one room is occupied, and the last is closed and not able to house a resident. This logic is maintained for the entire facility layout and, as seen in the first image, can be scanned quickly by a RiteTrack user.
RiteTrack can utilize your current terminology, construct your facility in a virtual environment, and provide an overview of room vacancies at a quick glance. This is just the tip of the iceberg of room assignment functionality; there simply is too much to cover in one article. Future blog posts will cover how to assign rooms, how to close rooms to occupancy, and even manage multiple room assignments for a resident.
There is, however, one more piece of good news for organizations making the upgrade to RiteTrack. The Project Management and Development staff at Handel will oversee the virtual construction of your facility as part of our standard deployment process. This layout will be tested, verified, and users will be trained extensively in its functionality prior to the launch of your solution. From the very first moment of use your RiteTrack system will deliver this powerful functionality to your users.
Nobody wants to make the choice between blowing a budget and sacrificing quality. RiteTrack offers a way to avoid that dilemma. Ask to see a demonstration of our Facility Management software today.
Looking for a speaker on topics of Tribes and technology? Casey is available to present at conferences or trainings on a wide variety of topics including program and data integration, enterprise-wide software implementations, systems-of-care, case management models, social services marketing, and digital security and compliance, among others.
