If your regulatory agency has an oversight board, then you and your staff know all about meetings: the time it takes to schedule them and prepare packets, the mountain of follow-up work they produce, and the fear of making a mistake that undermines a disciplinary action or simply makes your government regulatory agency look bad.
Meeting-related work can be particularly burdensome if your staff must schedule meetings, compile packets and complete other common tasks manually. The odds of making costly and embarrassing mistakes also rise along with the amount of manual work your staff must do.
A software system can eliminate much of the work and worry that accompany board meetings, improving morale while freeing up your staff to do other work. Discover regulatory software solutions to the common board meeting headaches at your agency from disorganized scheduling to time-consuming follow up.
Successful board meetings rely upon effective planning, which typically begins months before the meetings themselves. Your regulatory agency staff must schedule meetings, compile agendas, plan for the appearance of witnesses and attorneys and handle myriad other tasks that are easy to forget or fumble.
When planning does go wrong, predictable things happen. Board meetings become inefficient and seem to occur in an ad hoc manner. Even though your staff might spend many hours preparing for each meeting, the apparent lack of coordination can frustrate your board and erode morale in your office.
The right software product can make meeting preparation less onerous and nerve-wracking. Choosing software with Board Meeting Management functionality allows agencies to store and manage all data related to board meetings. Staff can run reports to see all upcoming meetings along with the records to be reviewed during each of them. Agendas and review materials can be generated automatically, and agenda items can be reordered and updated quickly and easily.
Such automation allows staff to plan for board meetings and meet regulatory requirements more easily and confidently. Meetings themselves unfold more smoothly, leaving board members and staff satisfied.
For each board meeting, your staff must compile a packet that contains supporting documentation. Such material can be voluminous, as board meetings usually involve the detailed review of applicants, enforcement cases and complaints, among other things.
Gathering all of this information manually can take a great deal of time. Documents may be stored in many different locations in your system, and even in separate paper files in your office. If your staff spent less time chasing down documents for board meetings, they would be free to engage in higher-value work.
Automation can speed up packet creation substantially. Compile all electronic files required for board meetings into packages that are easy to distribute, saving staff time and making remote board meetings easy to manage.
With a regulatory software system, associate enforcement cases, applicants and other records in the system directly to board meeting agenda items. This association allows users to pull details automatically into each agenda item. A management screen within regulatory software, also allows users to display and manage all agenda items and features dynamic access to all related documents.
When staff compile meeting material manually, human error inevitably occurs. A board that relies upon incorrect information can make erroneous licensing and enforcement decisions. The consequences of such errors can frustrate your board and erode staff morale. When mistakes undermine enforcement actions, they can even endanger the public your regulatory agency strives to protect.
The automated creation of agendas and compilation of related documents substantially reduces the opportunity for human error.
A regulatory software system not only automates the scheduling of meetings and compilation of meeting packets, but the application can be used interactively during meetings to ensure accuracy. Users can update the status of agenda items and take detailed notes. And these are captured automatically by the application when it generates meeting minutes. This functionality eliminates inaccuracies that can be created when meeting minutes are compiled manually.
Retain historical records of all board meetings in the system in order to comply with information retention and request requirements.
Old-fashioned paper board packets are loved by few. They are tedious and time-consuming for staff to compile. Paper and shipping are costly. And the time and effort required to get them to your board members make virtual meetings difficult to conduct.
A regulatory agency software tool with board meeting functionality makes board meeting packets less costly, time consuming and aggravating to compile. It also can make them easy to share with board members and the public. Because all meeting materials are stored electronically, they can be shared easily and quickly. They can be emailed, posted on a website or burned into a DVD.
Such flexibility is particularly useful when circumstances require your board to meet remotely.
Your staff’s work doesn’t end when the board meeting does. Board meetings themselves create work, including the processing of board decisions and the updating of related records in a timely manner.
At a typical meeting, your board might approve or deny scores of license applications and provide direction on several enforcement cases. When the meeting concludes, staff must process all of those application forms, update enforcement cases and carry out any other decisions the board has made.
Doing this work manually can take hours and erode staff morale. Staff might have to enter similar data dozens of times or enter data manually in different locations. Such work is tedious and occupies time staff could spend on other work.
A configurable regulatory agency software application can streamline business processes and reduce data-entry time. Following board meetings, staff must enter data only once. An application can pull information from one screen to another, eliminating duplicated work. Dashboards and other efficiency tools that automate typical follow-up tasks, leave your regulatory agency’s staff free to do higher-value work.
Every meeting is an opportunity to tell your regulatory agency’s story to your board. Does your board know how your regulatory agency measures performance, and is your software system able to compile those key indicators and present them in a way board members and the public can understand easily? Can your current system produce reports that illustrate future needs and support an argument for greater budgetary support?
Because government agencies often can do none of these things, their boards lack crucial information that would help regulatory professionals function more effectively.
A complete regulatory software system allows users to create interactive reports that communicate agency performance and needs. Microsoft’s Business Intelligence reports present your regulatory agency’s key performance indicators in visual form and allow users to drill into underlying data in order to illustrate areas of particular interest or to respond dynamically to questions raised at board meetings.
Visual Business Intelligence reports can help you communicate your government agency’s performance more effectively and highlight opportunities for additional focus and support.
GL Solutions delivers customized software solutions for government agencies—with board meeting functionality—helping them modernize, digitize, and automate their regulatory software systems and solve those board meeting headaches. Learn more about our regulatory agency software solutions, along with our Agency Transformation service to guide your agency on the modernization journey.
GL Suite’s Agency Transformation service moves beyond scattered improvements, instead implementing a truly strategic model of digital transformation for licensing, permitting and regulatory compliance. We take a consultative approach, working alongside your agency to perform a deep analysis of your permitting and licensing systems and processes. Then we craft a detailed plan following the five phases of Agency Transformation.
How the Arizona Medical Board Automates Meetings
The Arizona Medical Board has used GL Solutions’ GL Suite regulatory software to automate the scheduling of board meetings and the gathering of meeting materials for more than 10 years.
The agency’s board meetings involve the review of medical malpractice claims, which often include a large volume of related material such as X-rays, medical records and testimony. Board members need to have this material well in advance of each meeting in order to prepare.
When medical board staff run a simple command, GL Suite automatically compiles all board meeting materials and produces a table of contents. The results are distributed in electronic form to board members in advance of each meeting.
Meetings are conducted according to the automatically generated table of contents, and witnesses are scheduled automatically to appear in designated order. The board’s organized and automated system replaced a manual process that was both arduous and time-consuming.
Read more about how the Arizona Medical Board uses GL Suite regulatory software in our interview with Chief Technology Officer for the Arizona Medical Board Pushpa Gregory.
