AWARDS Keeps Your Data Clean with the OASAS CDS Upload

In August, Foothold hosted an in-person session on the AWARDS – OASAS CDS Upload.  This functionality allows agencies in New York State that report to the Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services to export their PAS 44, 45 and 47 data from AWARDS to OASAS’s Client Data System, thereby eliminating the need to manually enter the data client-by-client.  Our aim was to get more agencies using this functionality, as there are still many that have not yet implemented this great feature.

After I gave a demonstration of the functionality, I was joined by guest presenter Natalie Huntley, Quality Assurance/Clinical MIS Manager at Palladia, Inc. here in New York City.  Natalie notes, “The CDS file transfer is one of the greatest features in AWARDS. Electronic batch submission of our PAS 44 and PAS 45 saves our program staff countless hours of manual data entry into the CDS. During our infancy stages of using AWARDS, we manually entered our data into the CDS. Once we learned that we could batch our PAS 44 and PAS 45, we never turned back. The CDS upload is the most valuable feature in AWARDS for OASAS funded programs.”

Natalie walked us through the process Palladia uses to make their submissions, and she shared with us the flow chart she had created to assist staff.  Palladia chooses to submit their data twice a month, and Natalie says, “This allows for a decrease in the amount of data entry staff have to do in both systems, AWARDS and CDS.”  She also notes that reconciliation between AWARDS and CDS is key.  “At the end of each month, AWARDS and CDS should match. At any moment, an auditor can come to your site with their census list, so you want your internal system to match theirs. For us, AWARDS is our bible.”

With success rates consistently hovering around 95% for the hundreds of records they submit monthly, that’s hard to beat.