County QA unit outlines audits; council raises privacy and accuracy concerns about PointClickCare ER notifications

Clackamas County’s newly formed Quality Assurance (QA) unit told the advisory council on Oct. 27 that staff will begin file audits in January and will be tracking staff training hours and ISP/annual‑plan compliance more closely.

"We have a quality assurance unit within our DD program now... we are fully staffed in our small but mighty unit," the QA supervisor (Speaker 2) said, adding the team will begin file audits Jan. 1 to produce a more accurate picture of caseloads and compliance.

Later in the meeting, county staff explained PointClickCare, a notification system that provides counties with emergency‑room visit alerts for people enrolled in DD services. County staff noted the system’s value for health‑and‑safety monitoring but acknowledged accuracy and notice concerns. "PointClickCare... has all of the emergency room visits that occur for people... and we have access to it," a county staff member (Speaker 9) said. An ER nurse in the meeting cautioned that diagnosis codes and the short summaries county staff receive can be incomplete or misleading for clinical interpretation.

County staff said they are pressing the state on clearer notice, an opt‑out process, and limits on how PointClickCare output should be used in incident management; they will prepare draft privacy language and policy for the council to review in January.