Documentation Automation Can Bring Big Benefits to Adult Protective Services
Viewpoints
By Ron Mouw
On Sept. 3, 2024, I started my professional social work career. As a Baylor University online MSW student, this was the first day of my internship as an Adult Protective Services (APS) caseworker at a top agency contracted by the state of Illinois. Although I enjoy being an APS caseworker, I was frustrated to realize that roughly 60% of an APS caseworker's time (24 hours of a 40-hour workweek) is spent entering the required documentation, often into applications that lack basic automation, including spell-checking.
This was ironic since I spent the previous 20-plus years running software companies that automated the creation of documents using traditional rules capture and, recently, artificial intelligence (AI). With increased client demand and the short supply of social workers, APS state program leaders, social work supervisors, and caseworkers MUST do a better job of embracing automation to maximize job satisfaction, minimize employee turnover, and meet state-mandated requirements for client services.
As the Social Work Advocates 2023 article “ChatGPT and Social Work” suggests, social work practitioners need to increase our digital literacy. When entering case documentation according to procedures, an APS caseworker spends about 60% of their workweek at a computer. When we conservatively estimate routine meetings, training, and travel to and from clients’ homes and rehab facilities at 15%, that leaves 25% of the time an APS caseworker is meeting with and helping clients.
A common approach is for caseworkers to take handwritten notes while meeting with clients, eventually enter those notes into Microsoft Word for the benefit of Word’s grammar/spellcheck functionality, and finally cut and paste that information into their case management application. To be clear, I am not advocating one-off incremental improvements here; I am recommending a strategic sea change in embracing documentation automation at all levels of the APS community.
A brief report on frontline workers states being an APS caseworker is challenging and stressful. Reducing the time spent on documentation will undoubtedly maximize job satisfaction and reduce the turnover of APS employees. Clients will be better served as a result. The most significant stressor for APS caseworkers is not the potential encounters with bed bugs, belligerent alleged abusers, or angry dogs during unannounced home visits, but instead trying to keep up with the never-ending documentation requirements that result from every case-related activity (meetings, phone calls, emails, etc.). When client activities take more than 25% of the time established above, the worker doesn’t have the option of not doing those activities. For example, a Priority I intake may need to be seen in person within 24 hours. Caseworkers have two choices when caseloads surge. They can either work after hours or on weekends to catch up or fall behind in typing handwritten notes into their case management system. The latter introduces the additional stress of risking termination by the agency.
The National Adult Protective Services Association published a brief titled “APS caseload management” that states, “Stressed workers may start taking shortcuts,” and shows the correlation between stressed workers and the quality of APS services delivered. To be sure, many APS leaders will say there is no budget for documentation automation. However, I would suggest that the benefits and payback are so great that a shifting of resources at individual agency levels could occur without increasing the budget. For example, suppose an agency has 10 APS caseworkers in its office, and one leaves. The agency might consider reallocating a portion of the overall burden rate (salary, benefits, etc.) of the position for investments in automation to improve caseworker efficiency and job satisfaction. If this automation can help the remaining nine caseworkers have a 33.3% improved documentation efficiency, this would save them roughly eight hours a week in documentation work. According to the APS of IL 2022 Annual Report, there are 295 trained APS caseworkers and supervisors in Illinois alone. Saving all of them eight hours of documentation a week would save 113,280 hours a year (assuming four weeks of time off for each employee per year).
My purpose in writing this is not to lay out exactly how to automate APS casework entries, but a plea to change the mindset of the APS community—especially its leaders and supervisors. Investment in Grammarly and targeted AI capabilities at the state and agency levels are two examples of documentation automation. The article “Artificial intelligence in social work: emerging ethical issues,” published in the “International Journal of Social Work Values and Ethics,” says, “AI has the potential to transform social work and enhance the profession’s ability to serve clients, organizations, and communities.” When it comes to automation, having the same mindset of embracing automation technology could have remarkable results for APS caseworker job satisfaction, quality of client services, and eliminating the waste of our precious APS workers’ time.
Ron Mouw is a Baylor University online MSW student who recently completed an Adult Protective Services caseworker internship at a top agency contracted by the state of Illinois. He lives in the Chicago area with his wife of 33 years and two college-aged daughters. Ron also is the CEO of AI Docs Inc, in Oak Brook, Ill., a software company with a product that provides automation using rules and AI.
Viewpoints columns are guest editorials about topics related to social work. They are written by contributors to Social Work Advocates magazine, and do not necessarily represent the opinions or reflect the policies of NASW. If you are interested in writing for Viewpoints, email us at swadvocates@socialworkers.org.