In June 2009 WALSH Trust successfully submitted its first report to the Programme for the Integration of Mental Health Data (PRIMHD). The report was extracted from WALSH Trust’s Client Information Management Database and submitted electronically, achieving full compliance with the requirements of PRIMHD.
This was the latest milestone of a software package that had its genesis in the mid 1990s. While it has been completely re-built using the latest technologies and expertise, the experience and lessons learned from its earlier iterations have been invaluable to its development.
“This package has a number of features that we are particularly proud of.” says WALSH Trust CEO Rob Warriner.
“Staff, the end users, were key informants of the design and were loud and clear about their expectations of a system that could support their work. As a consequence, probably the most valuable feature is how user-friendly the system is”
The database integrates records where clients are using more than one service, encouraging collaboration and coordination of service delivery.
“It is very common for NGOs to have contracts with several organisations (such as Ministry of Social Development, Child and Youth and Family Services) to provide services. Each of them will have clear and often quite specific reporting requirements. The reporting options offered by this package are limitless.”
The Client Information Management Database is probably the only such package available which is designed to operate on either Windows or Mac platforms – or both at the same time!
Rob notes: “The database has consistently shown itself to be invaluable in managing a growing array of support services, promoting quality and consistency in service delivery, and easily producing reports for funders. “
“Producing a report for PRIMHD is as easy as clicking on a button”.
WALSH Trust is keen to share this software package with other organisations in the sector. “These kinds of product are very much a work in progress and need to be easily updated as sector demands change in order to retain their effectiveness. It would be great to have a collective of organisations contributing to and sharing this development”.
“For smaller organisations, WALSH Trust is happy to provide, free of charge, a fully featured, single-user version of the database.”
