May 9, 2024

We are on a journey towards people increasingly directing their own services. AlayaCare is instrumental in enabling our strategic direction, and helping us in shifting how we do our work to get to where we need to go.

As we continue on this journey there are challenges and areas of continued improvement as well as excitement for the future potential for person-directed services and AlayaCare.

In April, Nousheen Samuel (App Development & Digital Product Manager, Digital, Technology Innovation – DTI) and I attended a conference in Vaughan, Ontario where we heard from Employee Engagement Representatives and Workplace Relation Specialists. Specifically, they shared feedback and questions about AlayaCare, and suggested that we share more broadly some of the things we are doing these days to help improve our AlayaCare implementation.

Building on what was shared at the EER conference, here are some of the specific actions that are being taken to keep improving. The Digital Technology and Innovation department is working collaboratively across functions such as (Operations, Systems Managers, QRPI, HR, Finance, Legal, etc.) to action the following:

First, Nousheen and I are leading a working group to define support documentation standards considering variations in service types and employee technical skills to optimize our use of AlayaCare at Karis. In fact, this week Nousheen is testing some possible approaches with a small group of PMs and DSPs.

Next, we’re mindful that there are some technical challenges in navigating AlayaCare, as well as challenges with getting accustomed to the differing terms in AlayaCare from what we use in our day-to-day language – “care plan”, and ‘client”, for example. Christian Otte, VP of DTI, is in conversation with our partners at AlayaCare about these matters that we’ve heard from you. I won’t promise that we can get everything changed, but AlayaCare is keen to partner with us with a focus on the developmental services sector.

Third, Jeff Ham, Director of DTI, is leading the review and approval of forms in AlayaCare to ensure that the forms meet organizational standards and end user needs. He’s working with other relevant process/policy owners, of course, as he leads this.

Fourth, we are building reports for end users to provide meaningful data needed for day-to-day work and compliance. They expect these to be available in the next two months.

Finally, we are also creating written user guides (PDF) and visual aids (including AlayaCare quick reference guide or cheat sheet) to supplement the video-based training on the AlayaCare support site. Some are already available, and there are more to come next month.

I’m quite excited about AlayaCare and what it means for the services we offer. I’m most excited that people who use our services, and their family member if the person so chooses, will be able to access certain aspects of their own information and documentation through their own application portal. Now, that’s not been activated yet, but it is a key feature of AlayaCare that sets it apart from other platforms and is the main feature I’ve heard from leaders in the Our Voices Matter groups.

Our goal is to have clear expectations for documentation within AlayaCare by the end of June. If you have any questions, please let your supervisor know. You can also email Nousheen or me at:

Many thanks,

Dwayne

VP of Operations