As we have previously discussed, credentialing is the intake, vetting, and adjudication of professionals to check education, licensing, certifications, etc. These artifacts are attached to a person and once adjudicated, afford the employee or contractor certain privileges (e.g. patient care, medical practice, information security, law enforcement, etc.). Credentialing activity reviews occur initially during the onboarding process, but continuous evaluation occurs throughout the professional’s tenure at an agency.

Credential management does not end once the employee is onboard and cleared to work. The credential holder must maintain ongoing certification requirements, continuing professional education (CPE), currency maintenance, and similar activities. The continuous evaluation of an employee’s credentials throughout their tenure at an organization is often manual. Limited automation and the ability to monitor professional development requirements and expiration dates negatively impacts the organization’s mission and credentialing compliance.

However, with the introduction of an employee service portal, the credential holder can report Continuing Professional Education (CPE) events, practice hours and activities, report renewed or upgraded licenses/certifications, and similar activities. The reporting is initiated through a simple online form, but the platform allows the user to attach pertinent documents directly to the case (e.g. a newly issued license, etc). Depending on the event type, it may be an additional self-reported item on the credential case or it can trigger a workflow for the evaluation and adjudication of a new or upgraded license. Whether the credential is medical, investigation, law enforcement, or other, an integrated case management solution with employee self-service, flexible workflows and integrated reporting will greatly improve transparency and fairness.

Since the activities and artifacts are all contained in the same system, the complexity of reporting is greatly streamlined. The ServiceNow platform contains robust native reporting capability to make it easy to proactively report on and improve the management of credentials and events. All data stored within the case management system can also be directly interfaced/integrated with 3rd party analytic/cloud tools and exported from any existing report or table in CSV or Excel formats.  This level of reporting combined with the transparency of case status to authorized users will greatly mitigate an agency’s risk and improve performance.

Contact us at info@chainbridgesolutions.com to learn more about our approach to credential management.