BPM helps ensure fairness and efficiency with grant process

The California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office has selected a business process management (BPM) solution to improve its grants process for nursing and allied health programs statewide. The Nursing and Allied Health Unit has distributed tens of millions of dollars in both state and federal grants since 2005. Approximately $20 million in grants for nursing will be awarded to California Community Colleges (CCC) this year.

The director of the CCC Technology Center, Tim Calhoon, was asked to research and evaluate solutions that would improve the grant submission workflow and review process. Calhoon explains, “The process for awarding grants was an onerous one. We needed a system that would embrace workflow, ensure a standardized system and also look at the underlying processes.”

To the Nursing and Allied Health Unit team, eliminating paper and improving the accuracy of information for each grant submission were critical. The old process involved submitting paper applications and communicating about the status of an application via e-mail.

Based on the criteria of doing away with paper and increasing accuracy, Calhoon and his team chose BP Logix Process Director and its Process Timeline offering. The technology helps organizations predict how later stages in a process are affected by changes introduced in earlier stages, according to BP Logix. As a result, users have more insight into their processes, and are provided with the earliest possible notification of potential delays, BP Logix adds.

Calhoon says, “Having the process entirely online helps the Nursing and Allied Health staff to be more efficient throughout the grant submission process. It levels the playing field for all colleges, makes the application and reporting process uniform and enables existing staff to also monitor the grant supervision process more efficiently.”

The CCC is the largest higher education system in the nation, with more than 2.9 million students and 112 colleges.