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Picture on the left, identifies the VA Health Connect Clinical Contact Centers core services (Primary Care Scheduling and Administration, Clinical Triage, Primary Care Virtual Clinic Visits, and Pharmacy Services) provided to Veterans in various forms (i.e., chat, video, email, telephone, etc.) available 24/7, 365 days a year. Picture on the right, shows how the VA Health Connect data is transformed using Alteryx Designer and Alteryx Auto Insights based on identified measures.

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Leveraging Alteryx Designer Against VA Health Connect Data

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For VA, the Veterans Experience is at the heart of our mission. Finding innovative ways to improve upon their experience is key in providing high quality care, increasing the Veterans accessibility to services, and continuity of care. How can we provide higher quality care? How do we increase accessibility to care? These are often questions asked. Their answers become new solutions. For contact centers, it often involves increasing efficiency and improving effectiveness. This practice started off as spreadsheet-based, however, that can be problematic and time-consuming depending on the collected data. Alteryx Designer and Alteryx Intelligence Suite leverages the data from multiple sources to quickly develop tools that can be uploaded into Alteryx Auto Insights, that produces an easy to interpret dashboard. While this practice looks at call center data, the applications for this practice can be applied at any level within VA.

This innovation is emerging and worth watching as it is being assessed in early implementations. See more emerging innovations.

Origin:

May 2022, VISN 10 VA Health Connect Clinical Contact Center

Adoptions:

1 unsuccessful

Picture on the left, identifies the VA Health Connect Clinical Contact Centers core services (Primary Care Scheduling and Administration, Clinical Triage, Primary Care Virtual Clinic Visits, and Pharmacy Services) provided to Veterans in various forms (i.e., chat, video, email, telephone, etc.) available 24/7, 365 days a year. Picture on the right, shows how the VA Health Connect data is transformed using Alteryx Designer and Alteryx Auto Insights based on identified measures.

Tags:

Access to Care Data and Analytics Veteran Experience
Contact Team

Overview

Problem

The VA Health Connect Clinical Contact Center (VA Health Connect) was a VA initiative in 2021 designed to provide greater access to care for Veterans. This practice resulted from a question asked by my supervisor, while working for the VISN 10 VA Health Connect. His intent was to identify new metrics capable of improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and qu ... See more

Solution

Initially, this process took 4 months from identifying the necessary data to having it ready to be imported into a data visualization tool, like Microsoft Power BI. In October 2022, this practice started being built out in Alteryx Designer, a drag-n-drop, no code data analytics solution designed to build workflows quickly and easily. What had originally take ... See more

Images

Screenshot of the Alteryx Designer workflow around (3) VA Health Connect-related reports (CSQ Agent Summary Report, CSQ All Fields Report, and CSQ Activity Report by 30 minute Interval) generated from the Cisco Unified Intelligence Center. In addition, the box in the lower right corner of the screenshot indicates the workflow ran in 31.3 seconds.

Screenshot of VISN 10 VA Health Connect Workflow in Alteryx Designer

Results

In-progress

Diffusion tracker

Does not include Clinical Resource Hubs (CRH)

Statuses

There are no successful adoptions for this innovation.

There are no in-progress adoptions for this innovation.

OH: Dayton VA Medical Center (Dayton)
  • Started adoption on 10/2022, ended on 02/2024.
  • Unable to obtain necessary approvals
  • Unable to obtain necessary resources

Multimedia

Images

The VA Health Connect Clinical Contact Centers core services includes Primary Care Scheduling and Administration, Clinical Triage, Primary Care Virtual Clinic Visits, and Pharmacy Services. These services are available to Veterans 24/7, 365 days a year. These services are offered in the following forms chat, video, email, and telephone.

VA Health Connect Clinical Contact Center Core Services

Videos

Brief Introduction to Alteryx Designer

This video is a brief introduction to Alteryx Auto Insights. I will be demonstrating some of the features of Alteryx Auto Insights.

Implementation

Timeline

  • Step 1: Pre-Implementation (Note: Time it takes to complete this step may vary.)
    1. Hire/Assign (1 FTE, 40 hours per week) Program Analyst/Data Analyst.
    2. Assign laptop/desktop and all necessary accesses (i.e., specific CDW dataset,
    shared drives, etc.).
  • Step 2: First 30 Days of Practice Implementation (Roughly 90% of Implementation)
    1. Purchase applications and licenses (approx. 14 days):
    Alteryx Designer license (approx. $5,000 per license for 1 year)
    Alteryx Intelligence Suite license (approx. $2,500 per license for 1 year)
    Alteryx Auto Insights (approx. $150,000 includes: setup support and 300
    licenses)
    2. Training on Alteryx Designer through Alteryx Academy, Alteryx Support Team, and
    Practice Team
    3. Start setting up Alteryx Auto Insights once purchased. Requires support from OIT
    and the Alteryx Auto Insights Support Team.
  • Step 3: After first 30 days of Practice Implementation
    1. Alteryx Auto Insights test environment setup and testing begins.
    2. Alteryx Auto Insights goes into production.
    3. Alteryx Auto Insights licenses assigned (Licenses include both Creator and End-
    user).
    Notes:
    1) Longest part of implementation is getting Alteryx Auto Insights setup and put into
    production.
    2) Time may vary from setup to production.
  • Step 4: Post-Implementation
    1. Continue training on Alteryx Designer/Alteryx Intelligence Suite (AIS) using various
    resources (i.e., Alteryx Academy, Alteryx Community, building workflows in Alteryx
    Designer, etc.)
    2. Train supervisors/end-users of practice on the Auto Insights dashboard.
    3. Provide support for Auto Insights as needed.
    4. Develop new workflows as needed

Departments

  • Information technology

Core Resources

Resource type Resource description
PEOPLE
  • 1.0 FTE, 40 hours per week for 30 Days for initial training on applications. After first 30 days, 0.5 FTE, 20 hours per week or as needed by project load. Notes: 1) Preferable to be either a Program Analyst (0343 Series) or a data analyst health informatics experience and reports to Health Informatics team; and 2) Employee should be able to commit 2 hours per week to continued training through Alteryx Academy.
TOOLS
  • 1) Alteryx Designer license - (1) license is approximately $5,000.00 per year
  • 2) Alteryx Intelligence Suite (AIS) - (1) license is approximately $2,500.00 per year
  • 3) Alteryx Auto Insights - approximately $150,000 (* Includes: 300 licenses split between creator and end-users; and Support in setting up Auto Insights behind the VA firewall. Auto Insights Note: Majority of licenses are end-user licenses giving them the ability to view and create or edit missions (metrics or measures).
  • 4) (1) laptop with docking station and at least (1) 19-inch monitor (Preferably 24-inch monitor). Laptop Specifications: 1.6 to 2.0GHz processing speed, 16GBs of RAM memory. Note: This option can apply to working 100% remotely/Telework, OR 100% in an office space.
  • 5) (Optional) For 100% in Office, (1) desktop/thin client and at least (1) monitor 19-inches or greater.

Files

  • The Core Resources are the minimum requirements for successful implementation of this practice. Core Resources

Optional Resources

Resource type Resource description
PEOPLE
  • 2.0 FTE, 40 hours per week for 1 month for initial training on applications (Note: (1) Primary, (1) Backup). After first 30 days, (1) 0.5 FTE, 20 hours per week or as needed by project load, and (1) 0.25 FTE, 10 hours per week or as needed by project load. Notes: 1) Preferable to be either a Program Analyst (0343 Series) or a data analyst health informatics experience and reports to Health Informatics team; 2) Employee should be able to commit 2 hours per week to continued training through Alteryx Academy; and 3) Both FTEs should be familiar with projects (Completed and ongoing).
TOOLS
  • (1) laptop with docking station and at least (1) 24-inch monitor (Preferably (2) 24-inch monitor). Laptop Specifications: 2.0GHz or higher processing speed, 16GBs or more of RAM memory. Note: This option can apply to working 100% remotely/Telework, OR 100% in an office space.
  • Optional (Only for 100% in a office): (1) desktop/thin client and at least (1) 24-inch monitor (Preferably (2) 24-inch monitors).

Files

  • The Optional Resources are addition to the Core Resources that will make the organization more successful with implementation. Optional Resources

Support Resources

Resource type Resource description
PEOPLE
  • 1.0 FTE OIT Technician to setup Alteryx Auto Insights behind the VA firewall. Note: 1) FTE hours per week worked may vary when implementing Alteryx Auto Insights behind VA's firewall; and 2) Will be working with someone from Alteryx to assist in getting Auto Insights setup.

Contact

Comment

Comments and replies are disabled for retired innovations and non-VA users.

Email

Email with questions about this innovation.

About

Origin story

This practice started out, like many others, with a question. In May 2022, my supervisor, Matt Root, at VISN 10 VA Health Connect mentioned how he would like to be able to compare different metrics between the Agents data and the Ques data. After finding two reports that potentially could work, the tedious process of collecting, preparing, and formatting the ... This practice started out, like many others, with a question. In May 2022, my supervisor, Matt Root, at VISN 10 VA Health Connect mentioned how he would like to be able to compare different metrics between the Agents data and the Ques data. After finding two reports that potentially could work, the tedious process of collecting, preparing, and formatting the data began using Microsoft (MS) Excel. Fast forward four months, the data was ready to be analyzed and turned into visualizations. Late September 2022, I had a meeting with David Martin and Roger Shiltz from Alteryx. They demonstrated Alteryx Designer, a drag-n-drop, no code, analytics application with a lot of possibilities and potential. Two weeks later, I started building a workflow using the data I had collected. By the end of October 2022, with a lot of assistance from Roger Shiltz from Alteryx, what took 4 months in MS Excel we had completed in 40+ hours. The first time we ran the workflow it took 1 minute and 30 seconds to run. The second it finished running in 45 seconds. The next step for this practice is to connect several workflows to Alteryx Auto Insights, which will go through the workflow data and display a user-friendly dashboard identifying various metrics.

Original team

Joseph R Johnson IV, (Joseph.Johnson31@va.gov)

Program Analyst (Informatics), Practice Lead

Spencer Schaefer, (richard.schaefer@va.gov)

Kansas City VAMC Chief Health Informatics Officer (CHIO)

Matthew D. Root, (matthew.root@va.gov)

VISN 10 VA Health Connect Clinical Contact Center Management & Program Analyst Supervisor

Matthew Collins (matthew.collins5@va.gov)

Contractor, Liberty IT Solutions, LLC

Angela Gant-Curtis, (Angela.Gant-Curtis@va.gov)

Innovation/Emerging Technologies Director

David Martin, (David.Martin@alteryx.com)

Alteryx, Federal Account Executive

Roger Shiltz, (rshiltz@alteryx.com)

Alteryx, Professional Sales Engineer

Klebson Silva, (Klebson.silva@alteryx.com)

Alteryx, Engineering Manager

Search tags

Access to Care Data and Analytics Veteran Experience