Guide to Digital Case Management for Disaster Welfare Grants and Other Disaster Recovery Processes

Why exacerbate the existing challenges of disaster recovery

Recovering from a major disaster is difficult. And so, governments now dole out some form of financial assistance to persons or entities affected by disasters in their jurisdictions, whether those victims are low-income homeowners, tenants, small business owners, or otherwise. 

The resulting recovery assistance schemes are run by federal, state, and/or local agencies. Financial outlays are made available to successful claimants via conditional grants. Third-party providers might also receive payments from these agencies for services rendered, as might nongovernmental organisations (NGOs)

Before payment goes out, though, applications must be processed. Given the nature of these schemes, processing will typically happen in the immediate wake of a disaster. 

Indeed, these moments of extraordinary upheaval are becoming more frequent, as most regions see an acute rise in major disasters and trends pointing to more not fewer disasters in the foreseeable future. 

The Ecological Threat Register 2020, for instance, tracks a tenfold increase in the number of natural disasters since the 1960sⁱ. 

The Asia-Pacific region, in particular, stands out with nearly 3,000 disasters over the last 30 years, while Australia, averaging around five major disasters a year for three decades, remains disproportionately vulnerable given its relatively low population densityⁱⁱ. 

Of course, more disasters, including more simultaneous disasters, means more financial burden on victims. That burden, in turn, puts increased pressure on disaster welfare schemes to process grant applications more efficiently and get assistance out to victims more quickly. 

However, research shows that many aspects of the end-to-end grant process leave much to be desired. The typical process is overwhelmingly manual and paper based. When digital systems do exist, often for payment, the manual nature of associated tasks often militates against their effectiveness. As a result, they tend to be poorly integrated into the flow of work.

The larger effect of these process inefficiencies is increased error. Administrative overhead is high as are storage costs. Meaningful insight into the data compiled (whether on clients or officers processing claims) is also elusive, as data sources remain fragmented. 

The benefits of effective case management techniques for agencies who need to gather and process information quickly

What can be done? Case management techniques, which have oftentimes already been introduced into disaster grant processing, can be further refined and enhanced. Remember, case management – the collaborative work method to link people to the relevant and available resources they need to attain pre-determined goals [Stages detailed below] – is all about solving problems, especially problems resulting from the need to gather and distribute information quicklyⁱⁱⁱ. 

So, what are the specific benefits effective case management can bring to procwessing disaster welfare grant applications? The adaptive approach is well suited to the kind of complex, unpredictable work associated with disaster welfare grant processing, i.e. work that involves accessing fragmented data sources to meet the fastchanging needs of clients. 

In the disaster welfare grant scenario, data typically exists in surfeits (data overload). Not just that. But relevant information is usually spread across multiple, siloed channels (Word docs, spreadsheets, case notes, jottings from telephone calls, etc.), rendering it difficult to access the right information when it’s needed most. Disaster welfare grant processing also involves communicating across multiple channels, particularly when multiple, related investigations are happening simultaneously, which they usually do with little transparency. 

Effective case management interventions work well in these instances, because they form an important link between the client and the service delivery system to yield better, faster outcomes. How, exactly? Well, practitioners (triage and case officers) are enabled to more efficiently interact with the wider environment of information, resources, and services. In turn, these stakeholders make more expeditious decisions throughout the lifecycle of the case, which creates a better service experience for clients.

In the case of disaster welfare grant processing, specifically, case management techniques and capabilities can help better engage triage and case officers about ongoing incidents, enabling the more efficient routing of those officers for faster incident resolution. The improved customer service component of case management can also help in disaster welfare relief, where agencies must navigate complex client issues that often require multiple steps to rectify and manage long-term client relationships across at-risk populations.

Key phases of case management

• Screening

  In the clinical setting, screening helps determine whether a patient would benefit from case management services. Information is reviewed to this effect, including claims information, utilisation of healthcare services, current health status and history. 

• Assessing 

  Assessing involves the collection of information about a client’s situation similar to those reviewed during screening, but at greater depth, with the goal of (1) identifying the client’s key problems to be addressed, as well as individual needs and interests; (2) determining the expected goals and target outcomes; and (3) developing a comprehensive case management plan that addresses these problems and needs while enabling the achieving of goals outlined. The phase also involves either confirmation or update of the client’s risk category based on the information gathered. 

• Stratifying risk 

  During this phase, the appropriate level of intervention is determined by classifying the client’s level of risk. In the clinical setting, health risk assessment and biomedical screening would be performed, based on these risk factors. The case manager would then review the information generated and contact the patient if appropriate. 

• Planning

  As the name suggests, planning involves determining specific objectives, goals, and actions designed to meet the client’s needs as identified through the assessment process. The resulting case management plan is actionoriented and time bound, with both short- and long-term goals articulated.

• Implementing

  Defined officially as the “process of executing specific case management activities and/or interventions that will lead to accomplishing the goals set forth in the case management plan,” implementation is the stage during which care is coordinated by organising, securing, integrating, and modifying the resources needed for the client to reach the desired outcome. Here, the case manager can act as a liaison between the client, their support system and/or caregivers, providers, and payer/insurance company.

• Following-up 

  Again, as the name suggests, the following-up phase focuses on review, evaluation, additional monitoring, and reassessment of the client. In the clinical setting, the focus is on the client’s condition and treatment. 
  
  In other settings, the phase offers an opportunity to evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of the client’s case management plan and its effect on outcomes, i.e. gathering information from relevant resources and sharing that information with relevant stakeholders. Unsurprisingly, following-up might result in either a minor modification or a complete change to the case management plan. 

• Transitioning

  This phase is better known as transitional care, a clinical stage. Case managers typically use the stage to mitigate the risk of errors occurring when patients are transferring from care settings. They do so via education and follow-up. 

• Communication post-transition 

  This post-transition phase follows an episode of care. At this time, the case manager follows up to determine how things are going. Issue and problems, such as management and compliance, are addressed to ensure resolution.

• Evaluation

  Here, the case management plan is finally assessed, with its effect on the client measured. Metrics include cost-benefit analysis, returnon-investment, and client satisfaction – in the clinical setting, quality of life is also taken into account.

Digital case management systems for processing disaster welfare grants

The very unpredictable nature of work like disaster welfare granting serves as a reminder that effective case management isn’t easy. An acute challenge is that resources are often limited. Even when resources are available, accessing them often depends on overcoming crude information-sharing pathways. 

Indeed, many of the advantages of effective case management will remain all-but-theoretical without the introduction of the appropriate digital case management technologies to help agencies better manage and improve the details of how work gets done. 

In the disaster welfare grant context, technologies with configurable workflows automate key facets of unpredictable work to increase visibility into complex operations, improve collaboration, and facilitate better stakeholder engagement. 

How do these technologies work specifically? Firstly, intuitive user interface and experience (UI and UX) cater to the varying demographics and technology skill levels of the people who interface with the end-to-end disaster recovery grant process. The technologies are designed so that the various roles involved in grant processing have easy access to the information most relevant to their responsibilities in a single-source-of truth system where they can more efficiently complete tasks. 

Roles involved in the disaster recovery grant process

• The triage officer is often at the frontlines of the application process, potentially on the ground or on the phone speaking directly with applicants. It usually falls to triage officers to review applications to see if they fulfill minimum criteria before they become claims. 
  
  Case management technology helps this role by enabling triage officers to digitally validate that requirements are actually fulfilled. The system enables triage officers to easily input relevant information digitally in a single source of truth, which can be easily amended later (e.g. whether an applicant is insured, property type, mortgage owned, how many assets owned, status: renter or owner, etc.) If that information comes from claimants filling out public forms, it is automatically captured in-system, as well, and readily available for triage officers to review alongside a timeline of events. 
• The case officer typically takes over once the grant application is validated but might still need to add more detailed information about the claim. With a digital case management platform, there’s no need for a manual hand off from triage to case officer. The claim is automatically made in system, with all the existing information about the case from the triage stage (e.g. case ID, date and time created, date and time completed, submitted date, due date, etc.) now available to the case officer. Case events and prior decisions logged are also available. 
  
  What other information might the case officer need at this juncture? Well, the digital case management system would have tabs for relevant information (e.g. JPEGs of damaged assets, uploaded bank statements, etc.) and processes like application review and other tasks associated with the case, as well as details about the applicant and their income, timeline of events, archived communications with the applicant or triage officer, case notes, and the ability to chat in-system with other stakeholders about the case. 
  
  Claimants are usually looking for renumeration for lost or damaged items. Agencies will have recommended grant guidelines for how much they will pay out for a given item. With a digital system, those guidelines are automatically input, so there’s no need for a case officer to consult another paper-based source. Instead, the system automatically calculates how much will be paid out per item. 
• The team leader might not always have to work on individual cases. But the supervisory role will need summaries of incidents, team tasks and actions, and case management information. 
  
  Digital systems will provide robust dashboards overviewing applications and cases assigned to individual team members in addition to the team leader’s own tasks (associated with individual cases). Digital platforms also enable team leaders to assign tasks in system.
• The executive or department head might have reporting obligations or just need line-of-sight into department operations, and so the digital system will provide dashboards overviewing officer workload, e.g. the number of open/closed applications or applications created/closed by month. 

Digital case management platform capabilities

Other relevant digital case management platform capabilities include:

• Integrations with existing systems
• Electronic forms for disaster welfare officers to process applications
• Ability to upload paper forms
• Configurable workflows for cases, investigations, and report production
• Configurable forms for cases, targets, subjects, or investigations
• Digital tools to add case notes, documents, etc.
• Ability to process payments to clients, NGOs, and other third parties
• Audit and security controls
• Data query and reporting tools

No longer looming, the disaster threat is here; and more disasters mean more need for assistance to recover. Victims can’t recover, however, if the end-to-end grant process remains inefficient and prone to error. Fortunately, digital case management platforms, like Noggin’s, eliminate common frictions while automating time-consuming aspects of unpredictable work. The result: more grants get processed expeditiously, clients are happier, cost and administrative overhead are reduced, and agencies are better prepared for the turbulent future. 

Citations

i Institute for Economics & Peace: Ecological Threat Register 2020: Understanding Ecological Threats, Resilience and Peace. Available  at https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/ETR_2020_web-1_0.pdf.

ii Ibid.

iii David Challis, University of Kent: Case management: problems and possibilities. Available at http://www.psi.org.uk/publications/archivepdfs/Care%20managers/CHALLIS.pdf