"Tulare County Environmental Health Division has been a customer and user of Envision for the last ten years when the windows based version was released. Our original interest was to manage both health permit issuance and fiscal accounting. While the Decade product could do much more than those activities, we did not have IT support in the division. We quickly saw the benefits of using more of the software capabilities to address integrating data collected in the field for various programs.

User Groups

It became very important to the Division to have a specific person assigned to manage the issues that come up in the daily use of the product. Without an IT support staff available it meant that whoever we chose to do this work must know the Division’s process but would have to learn the technical skills to interface with Decade. I believe that many of the clients had these same limitations. The clients formed a user’s group with Decade support so that much of these issues could be solved as they related to the industries changing needs. This was the beginning of a great networking process that really launched our expanded use of the software.

Upgrading To EnvisionConnect

At this point, the Division is in the process of cleaning up the data in an effort to transition to the upgrade to EnvisionConnect. We do have an IT business analyst that interfaces with the Decade and the division. Much of the data cleanup has been accomplished with the help of Decade facilitating this process through the help of one of their staff as a point professional we were able to access.

Meeting Specific Requirements

Decade was instrumental in the development of the data exchange desired by the state for all Certified Unified Program Agencies (CUPA). This effort helped in the granting of funds for the transition and portal used in the upgrade. Kevin Delaney and Darryl Booth have become experts in this process and we consider them a sole source with their product even though there are many competitors, none have been able to meet the specific needs of the California environmental health program’s data sharing requirements.

Coordinating Data Management and Data Sharing

Within Tulare County the division has the contract responsibility to conduct the Dairy Inspection Services. While there was currently no applicable module that would accomplish the data management in this program, Decade has committed to develop the module and address our needs. This is a very important add on for us since the county is the largest producer of fluid milk in the country. We must maintain the data and program management information consistent with the rest of the Division and approved by both state and federal dairy regulatory programs.

The above comments demonstrate the important role Decade provides in the coordination with the state for data management and data sharing. Using Envision has provided an effective way of intergrading and managing all of our program elements. It gives us easy and necessary access to our data in new ways that permit the Division to achieve new efficiency. We anticipate using new features such as GIS to further improve our work outcomes. Thank you Kevin, Darryl, Jenny and the upgrade team for all you do and what we plan to accomplish together."

Lawrence A Dwoskin MS, REHS, Director, Tulare County Environmental Health Division

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