This story was submitted by Ostendio.
Ostendio helps La Clinica Del Pueblo meet security and compliance needs
In-kind platform donation helps busy community healthcare organization fill a funding gap
La Clínica del Pueblo (https://www.lcdp.org/) is a community-based health center committed to delivering the highest quality, culturally appropriate, and patient-centered health services. La Clínica is a non-profit organization and Federally Qualified Health Center founded in 1983 to meet the emergent health needs of the Latinx immigrant community in the DC, VA, and MD area.
“Grants our organization receives don’t typically fund the administrative costs associated with my role.” - Divya Moolchandani, Compliance Officer at LCDP.
Divya Moolchandani, Compliance Officer at LCDP, explained that grants their organization receives don’t typically fund the administrative costs associated with their role, so LCDP relies on community partners like Ostendio for assistance. Ostendio offers the platform to registered charities either free or at a reduced cost as part of its Pledge 1% commitment to give back to the community.
The Challenge
Just like any for-profit clinic, La Clinica Del Pueblo needs to work in line with several healthcare frameworks including HIPAA. However, as a non-profit, their funding would not typically allow them to afford a complex compliance and risk management tool such as Ostendio. Moolchandani explains, “When we understood the Ostendio mission it was a gift that fell in our laps. We have seen our workforce change. Ostendio has freed up their time to give back to the patients because Ostendio has made our processes more efficient.”
LCDP needed to move away from spreadsheets and internal document sharing to a more robust method of security and compliance management.
The Solution
LCDP is using the Ostendio platform to meet HIPAA guidelines that apply to all healthcare organizations and LCDP also uses the risk management and compliance features. Moolchandani explains that LCDP most frequently uses the risk module, audit module, and ticketing feature.
Features most used:
Ticketing - report and track incidents and process improvements within the organization
Audit - used for internal audits and automates workflows
Assets - - used to keep track of documents such as contracts, certificates, and agreements
Security Risk Assessment - used for internal assessments as well as HIPAA compliance
Training - cybersecurity training, HIPAA compliance training, patient safety, and risk management compliance.
As with many smaller organizations, Moolchandani said that before using Ostendio, LCDP managed their processes internally with spreadsheets and document sharing. By moving to the Ostendio platform they have now formalized those processes and become more efficient in their data security and compliance.
The best feature of the platform for Moolchandani is the assets module which allows LCDP to manage and track user access to assets and set data policies within assets, set and track asset risk and manage remediation, and track change requests and schedule data access audits.
“I appreciate using the assets model to track our contracts. For us, many contracts outline the relationships we have with providers. We use the Ostendio platform to upload our contracts and assign them to a relationship manager within the organization. We can send some of our patients to certain hospitals without charge. Using the Ostendio platform we can track that information. This has helped us with our overall mission by helping us gather valuable data that we can then take to other hospitals and explain how they could also be involved with helping our clients,” said Moolchandani. This is essential work as two-thirds of LCDP patients are underinsured or uninsured.
The results
When choosing to work with Ostendio, Moolchandani explains that it was all about finding the right partnership. She adds that of course procurement, cost, and quality of service are important but the partnership was key. “We don’t want to be treated as a charity just because we are one,” Moolchandani explained. “We are looking for a partnership. We are a pro bono client for Ostendio but we have never felt like we are treated as one. I’m an Ostendio super-fan.”
Moolchandani added that the benefits of using the platform directly impact the patients that they care for at LCDP, “It is a game changer for us at LCDP. We are beyond grateful. If we were using spreadsheets I would need to employ six full-time employees instead of your platform. The cost savings of that goes directly back to helping our patients.”
As a compliance officer, Moolchandani says she loves the forced audit trail that is provided by Ostendio. “If I am to make a change I have to say why. I know at the back end I can print a report about why I made a change and this is essential when you are working with auditors.”
Working with the experts at Ostendio in the customer success team was also a bonus for LCDP. Moolchandani says “The platform is generally intuitive” but if she needs help there is information easily available that experience is different from other platforms she has used. She also emphasized that “the customer success team feels like I have an expert partner and that is what I needed in terms of service from a vendor.” Working for a non-profit, Moolchandani could also resonate with the Ostendio values, adding, “You can tell they have a set of core values and they identify with the values of your company and that comes across.”
Corporate Social Responsibility at Ostendio
Ostendio is proud to be a Pledge 1% member and in addition to direct donations, we provide the Ostendio platform for free or at a reduced price to qualifying non-profits and give our employees paid time off to volunteer. Pledge 1% is a global movement that encourages and empowers companies of all sizes and stages to donate 1% of their staff time, product, profit, and/or equity to any charity of their choosing.
Learn more about our Corporate Social Responsibility program here https://www.ostendio.com/corporate-social-responsibility.
