Why should you care?
Passport is highly configurable to meet the vast variety of needs from our healthcare clients, including their organizational structures and processes. In onboarding new clients, one of the most frequently asked questions we receive is:
“Can you send me all the files and specifications I will need for Passport?”
In order to answer this question, we first need to learn more about your business goals, technical goals, ideal time frame, and any constraints your team may have. This article will serve to bring transparency to our process in providing you the best application experience possible for your organization.
The following four high-level considerations of the Passport system must be determined when designing what short term and long term success mean for your business: Organization Structure, People Management, Credential Management, and User Management.
As our Onboarding and Client Care Team works with your company in more detail, we’ll be able to further narrow these four areas down--improving your experience and helping you achieve your business goals.
Four key considerations for determining file needs
1. Organization Structure
Every healthcare organization has its own preferences for segmenting and labeling their locations, business, people, job titles, and more. Some clients prefer to “throw everything in one bucket,” while others require detailed structures built into the foundation of the application to organize their data for users and for reporting. When an organization's structure is very stable, our team will work with your team during onboarding and be highly engaged in the initial one-time setup.
If the structure of data needs to be more flexible, then we might require organizations to build file support for shifting, re-organizing, and re-naming any of these elements over time. In this use case, files are likely needed to manage ongoing adjustments to structure. Some common files utilized are the "Facility File," "Unit File," and "Hierarchy File." The exact files and processes needed will be determined in onboarding depending on the organization's needs. We support .CSV and .PSV file types along with PGP encrypted file types. Files can be delivered more automatically via SFTP folders (How to: Establishing Secure File Transfers with ProviderTrust) or manual uploads inside of the Passport system.
In brief: In order to best structure the system for you, understanding how you organize your people, data, locations, and more will improve and expedite our recommendation for the files you might need.
2. People Management
Most organizations have a population large enough with high enough turnover to opt for a regular provider file. This file will automatically manage population additions, removals, and adjustments. Manual person management is also available inside of Passport, and this may be your preference if you have a smaller population with less turnover. Either way, however much detail is decided upon in your Organization Structure (see above) directly impacts the level of detail needed for managing your people in the system. Each person monitored will need to clearly identify a “home” location in the system. In addition, a person record must be added before a license or credential can be tracked or monitored within Passport.
Some common files utilized for people management include the "SSN Provider File" or "Unique ID Provider File," "Discipline Mapping File", and "Unique ID Data Management File." We support .CSV and .PSV file types along with PGP encrypted file types. Files can be delivered more automatically via SFTP folders or manual uploads inside of the Passport system.
In brief: Deciding on automated or manual people management will determine your needs for provider files. This is directly impacted by your organization structure (see consideration #1 above).
3. Credential Management
Clients wanting to monitor, track, and report on items in Passport (licenses, certifications, and documents) will need to set up a process to manage these items. As mentioned above, a record for a person must be added before a credential can be tracked or monitored within Passport. Depending on your population size and Service Level Agreement (SLA), your company may choose to set up requirements in the application first in order to facilitate users manually entering these items directly into Passport. However, if your company is not already tracking organization-wide licensure and job requirements on an ongoing basis, this may not be helpful when first getting started. Your Onboarding Team will help you determine what is right for you in the early stages of your setup.
Licenses, certifications, and documents are often keyed in and managed locally (at the facility and regional level by Human Resources). In addition to manual user entry, clients wanting to have either a one-way feed of credentials into the Passport application, one-way feed of credentials out of the Passport application, or two-way feeds of data to and from their HRIS and back, will utilize a file for bulk data transport.
Some common files utilized for bulk credential management include the "SSN" or "Unique ID Provider Files," "Discipline Mapping File", and "Unique ID Data Management File." We support .CSV and .PSV file types along with PGP encrypted file types. Files can be delivered more automatically via SFTP folders or manual uploads inside of the Passport system.
In brief: The Onboarding Team will help you determine if Bulk Credential Management is right for your organization. This largely depends on the first two considerations--how you structure your organization, how large your population is, and how you structure your population data.
4. User Management
Clients are responsible for managing who in their organization should have access to the data within Passport, along with what detail they can and cannot access. Passport has a variety of user permissions to help aid you in setting these access rules up for your team. If you require a high level of control or have frequent turnover, you will likely choose to bulk manage by file. As well, you can manage user management manually from the Passport system, which tends to work best for clients with a low volume of users and low turnover.
Each of these considerations is impacted by the consideration above--the level of structural detail outlined in consideration #1 can directly impact the level of #2, #3, and #4. It is imperative to start from the top down.
Some common files utilized for bulk user management include the "Short Form User File" and "Jobcodes File". We support .CSV and .PSV file types along with PGP encrypted file types. Files can be delivered more automatically via SFTP folders or manual uploads inside of the Passport system.
In brief: Passport allows access restrictions via user permissions. These may be managed manually for smaller teams, or managed with a bulk file.
To sum it up...
Depending on your company and business needs, you may use anywhere between several files to no files when utilizing Passport. Most companies are engaging with at least two regular file types to meet the needs of managing user access and monitored population management. Be aware that depending on your SLA with your HRIS or IT consultants, there may be fees that they charge in order to build and maintain files mentioned in this article.
Engaging a technical contact or agent sooner rather than later will likely help these conversations progress more swiftly between ProviderTrust, your project managers, and the HRIS/IT consultant.
As always, feel free to reach out to our support team with any more questions you may have!