Wrangle

Please describe your company and your position there.

I'm a family physician working at a federally qualified health center that provides care to underserved communities in St. Paul, MN, with a focus on the homeless population.

At the beginning of the pandemic, when our clinics were closed to most in-person visits, our organization was contracted to monitor the health of residents at a new homeless shelter (set up by the county) with confirmed or suspected COVID, to keep them separate from the uninfected population.

I worked there for several months, helping to set up the operations there. I now am back to working as a physician at our Healthcare for the Homeless clinic.

For what projects/services did your company hire Wrangle, and what were your goals?

When we first opened the shelter, our staff of healthcare providers needed a way to track the vital signs and symptoms of shelter clients, to determine who needed further quarantine who was ready and safe to leave, and who might need a higher level of care (we did not provide medical care there, only monitored).

We had only a paper logbook at first, and found it very difficult and burdensome to use. At that time it was thought that the virus was transmitted on surfaces, and so we had to sanitize the binder and pens and had to leave the binder in a "dirty room" of the building, and get in and out of PPE and re-sanitize any time we needed to enter or review information in the logbook.

The process was burdensome and the system was difficult to update and review. We desperately wanted a digital system that could be used on tablets.

We needed a tool with which we could quickly and clearly see which clients were flagged, in order to keep our clients safer and avoid delays in getting them to care they needed (for example if we needed to monitor a fever or shortness of breath, we wanted it to be easy for the next shift to identify which clients might need transfer to a hospital).

We needed to enter data quickly and be able to review the info from a remote location to minimize the time our staff spent exposed to sick clients, and minimize the number of times we had to get in and out of PPE.

We knew tablets would be easier to sanitize than a paper binder and pens. We were not providing medial care and this was not a medical facility, so we were not bound by HIPPAA, but having a secure and private and protected system was also important for us.

How did you select Wrangle and what were the deciding factors?

When we described our situation to Wrangle they immediately started brainstorming possible solutions and they were willing to move quickly. From our first discussion to the launch of the initial prototype was just nine days.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and technologies used.

Wrangle handled everything from defining the initial concept through design, development, launch and post-launch support.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

We were in contact with three Wrangle team members on a daily basis throughout the project. Jeff led the project, and we also worked with the Project Manager and less directly their programmer.

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

The solution Wrangle built for us helped us serve hundreds of clients. The tool helped the members of our team communicate easily and do our work much more efficiently and (most importantly) safely.

A year into this pandemic, it's difficult sometimes to recall just how little was known about the virus in the beginning, and about how best to keep healthcare workers and the public safe.

We were desperate to minimize our use of PPE and preserve what we had. Wrangle's solution decreased the number of times we had to change in and out of PPE by approximately 50%. It cut the amount of time we had to spend going from room to room and recording vital signs by at least 30-40%.

And most importantly, it lowered the stress level of our staff at a time, in the frightening dark early days of the pandemic, when our levels of stress, fear, and exhaustion were high.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timelines.

It was highly collaborative and the team moved quickly. When we asked for new features, they were often ready to test by the next day. We also shifted directions on several occasions as we used the new tool, and the Wrangle team was always helpful, ready and willing to adjust with us.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Wrangle's ability to listen, understand our situation, and then offer solutions to minimize our risk was fantastic. Our staff had little tech knowledge and we often lacked the proper language to describe our problems, but Wrangle patiently and clearly helped us translate our wish list into a usable tool, remarkably quickly.

We felt a degree of transparency (ie: "we see that you would like X, but that will take longer to build, would you like to try our substitute idea of Y, which is similar and we could get it done in a day or two? and see how it works?") that was refreshing and practical and helpful.

Their ideas and questions helped us to prioritize our own needs. They seemed truly curious and concerned about our work and about how they could support us as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Their ability to execute on those ideas on such a rapid timeline was very impressive. The team was clearly driven and hard-working, but their energy was consistently good-natured, friendly, and at ease (despite our frequent requests for changes), which was was just what we needed at a time of such constant change and uncertainty.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

It would have been nice if we could have met and worked together in person. Because of the pandemic, all of our work was remote.

I would have liked to have shown them our space and our process in real life, if only because it probably would have made their work a bit easier for them, especially at the beginning.

That being said, the tool Wrangle built for us (and their timely and nimble responsiveness) so greatly exceeded our expectations that it's hard to identify anything that could have been better. We're very grateful.