A special message from Neil and Jackie
As 2016 winds down, we’d like to reflect on the year that was both at iCarol and in the industry we serve, and look ahead to exciting things on the horizon for our clients and partner organizations.
We continue to take advantage of the fluid nature of web-based software by regularly enhancing iCarol. In 2015, we were proud to have released over 1,600 coding changes and enhancements to your iCarol systems. But for 2016, we’re on track to more than double that with a release of over 4,000 improvements. This is a reflection of our expanded Technology team at the direction of our new Product Management team. We’re with you on this journey, and this exemplifies our commitment to ongoing innovation and building iCarol to evolve and grow with the needs of your service and your community.
As we add on capabilities and as our user base grows, we know the importance of our infrastructure providing a stable foundation for the work you do in iCarol. Therefore, this summer we installed a state-of-the-art network storage appliance and fine-tuned our code for performance, which resulted in our total system uptime being on track to hit 99.975% for the year, well exceeding our stated target of 99.9% and considered by the industry to be excellent. Nothing is more important to us than helping you help people, and we know that a reliable connection to our software is critical to your mission. We will continue to invest in tools and technologies over the coming year that allow our infrastructure to scale and perform well, as we expect 2017 to be another year of growth for us.
In our travels to conferences and ongoing conversations with helpline industry leaders, we took note of the major trends either emerging or magnifying, including:
- Identifying and addressing “social determinants of health” so that people in need can be more systematically helped across the spectrum of medical, health, human and social services. We’re seeing partnerships in our client base and directly ourselves with other firms to help contribute to this trend and advance it in the years to come.
- Greater focus on “outcomes” rather than “outputs” – while this has been in motion for quite a few years, we’re seeing an increased focus on what composes a true “outcome”, as well as the use of much more advanced analytic tools like business intelligence to glean insights about the true outcomes that help seekers experience as a result of being served by you.
- The continued increased use of channels other than phone to seek help, like live chat, text messaging and social media.
So with 2016 almost in our rearview, what comes next? Looking forward to 2017, we intend to invest heavily in iCarol’s product capabilities in the following areas to stay ahead of the progress we’re seeing:
- Dramatically improved reporting
- Support for continuity of care
- Revised and improved follow-ups and outcome tracking
- Continued improvements to iCarol’s already robust support for popular channels like chat and text
- Enabling resource search and initiation of chats from the most popular social media venues
- Increased accuracy of resource data and search results for help seekers
In closing, we hope that 2016 has been a good year for you personally and also for your agencies. The work you do continues to be a source of inspiration and motivation for us, and we wish you nothing but the best this holiday season. We remain deeply honored to serve you, our clients, and look forward to another year of service and giving in 2017 and beyond.
Warm regards,
Neil and Jacqueline McKechnie
CTO and CEO, Co-founders of iCarol Helpline Software
