Office 365 GCC: Spokane Regional Health District Goes Digital

Like many government healthcare agencies, Spokane Regional Health District (SRHD) came under enormous pressure when COVID-19 hit in the Spring of 2020. Being responsible for overseeing public health for the 400,000 citizens of both the City and County of Spokane, Washington, the agency had to find efficient ways to function in a world overturned by a global pandemic.

Fortunately, SRHD was able to manage the crisis in stride because it already had a digital strategy in place before COVID-19 struck. The agency had previously migrated to Office 365 GCC (Government Community Cloud). The organization had adopted Microsoft Teams for internal communications and interactions.

People in the agency began using NITRO Studio, Crow Canyon’s powerful forms and workflow platform, to enhance business process automation in Office 365 GCC and Teams.

Using these tools, SRHD was able to automate many of its functions, reduce costs, and operate more effectively while maintaining a remote workforce. The agency replaced legacy systems such as InfoPath Forms and SharePoint 2010 & 2013 Workflows with modern, cloud and mobile friendly solutions based on NITRO Studio. It implemented two of Crow Canyon’s business applications, IT Help Desk and Project Manager, putting comprehensive systems in place that furthered efficiency.

But the “Digital Transformation” path was not an easy one. Like many government organizations, SRHD faced challenges bringing its digital vision to life. Budgets were limited and funds restricted to certain activities. The IT Support team was pulled in many different directions and operational efficiency relied heavily on the administrative level and not IT Pro’s. The team was looking for a solution that was easy to adopt and implement yet had a full range of functionality.

Kimberlee Kealiher, part of the in-house Office 365 team at SRHD, understood she would be the primary person responsible for replacing paper-based processes and legacy InfoPath forms. She would need to build workflows to automate business operations. Therefore, she wanted a solution that was easy-to-use, powerful, and of course affordable due to the complex procurement and approval processes within government and healthcare entities.

The SRHD team had met up with Crow Canyon Software at SharePoint and Office 365 conferences in Seattle and Las Vegas. After receiving a demo of Crow Canyon’s NITRO Studio and ready-to-use business applications, Kimberlee told her team:

“The minute I saw NITRO Studio’s Custom Actions, Reporting, Workflows, and Forms Designer, with their functionality, expandability, and usability, I decided this is the automation process platform we have to have!”

The SRHD team agreed and brought NITRO Studio into the Office 365 tenancy. With some quick training, Kimberlee was ready to replace InfoPath Forms and SharePoint 2010 Workflows while building more complex automations. She noted that:

“The Crow Canyon Software Support Team is always available to walk me through the final stage of my workflow and business process automation – I’m usually about 80% there, and with a quick chat or call from support, I can finish it.”

After much success with NITRO Studio, SRHD added Crow Canyon’s IT Help Desk and Project Manager, two of the dozen “out-of-the-box” business applications that Crow Canyon provides. These applications were ready for immediate deployment with no development time needed, bringing complete solutions that integrate with Microsoft Teams and Crow Canyon’s Bot technology to the organization.

The combination of Office 365 GCC, Microsoft Teams, and Crow Canyon’s NITRO Studio and business applications has proven to be a powerhouse solution that has removed digital transformation roadblocks and driven SRHD to operate more efficiently and securely on a smaller budget.

More importantly, it has allowed SRHD to successfully manage a healthcare crisis and make a bigger difference in the lives of the 400,000 people it serves as a government provider.