A cash-strapped county in Ohio hopes to help social workers become more efficient by equipping them with iPads. Instead of the hand-written notes many of them now take during house calls while working with at-risk kids, they can save time by typing on the tablet computer.
Dubbed “Operation iPad,” the $300,000 purchase of 187 Apple devices is considered a major upgrade for the staff at Jobs and Family Services in Hamilton County, Ohio.
It’s also a major expense for an agency whose budget was slashed by 45% in the last four years, but easy to see why they’re eager to try it.
Right now, the field workers make four to five visits to parents or caregivers for each case they handle. They come back to the agency’s office and then have to type everything in to a desktop. The pilot program will be tested with just the workers who spend the most time on the road. It’ll also be a test as to how well the devices work with the existing computer infrastructure.
“In an agency hit with severe budget cuts and an upgrade in technology will help them save time along with providing real-time information updates with the goal of helping to protecting at-risk children,” said Greg Hartmann, the Hamilton County Commission President.
Via WCPO
Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco freelance writer who heads up Cult of Mac Magazine, our weekly publication available on iTunes. You can find her on Twitter and Google+. If you’re doing something new, cool and Apple-related, email her.
31 responses to “iPads Replace Desktops for Social Workers”
How on earth is that a $300,000 expense? That’s coming out as about $1600 a machine!?
Apps, accessories, support contracts…the list goes on.
Also…perhaps an iCloud-capable Mac or two in the office for supervisors as well as an Airport Extreme and or Time Capsules, network backup drives, Airport Express with AirPrint-capable printers, etc.
Typo alert – Cash-trapped? Wall of money has penned them in?
You might mean Cash-strapped.
But… but… the iPad is useless. It’s just a big iPod and an overpriced toy. These social workers would have been better off buying a batch of $250 Windows netbooks which would have been much more useful because workers would have been able to use Microsoft Office with Word and Excel which are the backbone of the business world. Now all they have is some toy to play Angry Birds and watch The Simpsons. These social workers should have waited another year for the Windows 8 tablets, so they could take field notes with a stylus and get some “real” work done with a “real” tablet.
Note: any device that doesn’t use Microsoft Windows is not considered “real” and is therefore useless
Dunno. Cash-trapped renders the idea quite nicely, less cliche. Next time I’ll do it on purpose.
microsoft office sucks. and for the iPad, there are much more specialized apps, for gathering information and putting it into a database…no need to despair of office apps on the iPad
at least they did the math properly before voting about it ;)
Ok, I want that iPad on the picture! It looks great!
well given the task they are doing they likely have 3g iPads so that’s at least $629 plus tax if they go for the basic one. $25 a month per iPad for 3g service. Plus Apple Care for each one. It does add up
I’m not shocked they are trying this. there’s all kinds of ways they can use an iPad. create a custom app for their records or use a remote log in app and that cuts down on redoing those notes. Plus the camera can be used if they need to document anything visually. And the iPad can be a great ice breaker with the kids.
Hey, a real shout out to Ohio to Social Workers protecting kids. Can you say iHelp!
IPads in the hands of Social Workers can change the world. Word!
?;^D
Err… I think it was a joke, actually… Given away by the last line…
I have a family member who works as a social worker and they would say it is a dumb idea.
Generally speaking the majority of the families social workers visit are low income families. I can tell you there has been scuffles over a stupid flip phone trying to be stolen. I think they are asking for trouble by putting these people out there in these environments with iPads.
I work in the Federal agency that employs more of the nation’s Social Workers than any other. Our staff go into the field with notebook computers that have our proprietary medical record installed. There are several layers of security to protect the private information stored on these laptops. While the iPad, WITH an attached keyboard, could be as effective as a notebook, I am concerned about security.
I suspect that this is a thin client solution where data is not stored on the tablet. The only security required would be a VPN and the user login.
An even better solution would be to offer the SOP (http://www.systemofproof.com) recording service, where the social worker could speak into their phone and have it sent to the office email where another worker could type the notes and have them on the desk of the social worker by the time they return. It would have cost 187 workers – $10,000 for 5 years of service. This would have saved $290,000.