Woolpert’s IT Upgrade Modernizes Oldest U.S. Health Department

DAYTON, Ohio (Feb. 16, 2015) — Woolpert announced today that the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC), the oldest health department in the U.S., is now live with Accela Environmental Health and Safety on the Civic Platform.

The Civic Platform will support the BPHC by offering solutions for Permitting and Code Enforcement, as well as Mobility, Citizen Access and Accela GIS for Boston Health solutions. The upgrade in information technology (IT) services addressed the BPHC’s need to consolidate data, enhance data quality, reduce manual processing time, increase staff efficiency and improve customer service.

“The unique challenge with this project was the diversity of services the BPHC offers their citizens coupled with the various types of data sets,” said Chad Weiffenbach, Woolpert project manager. “By streamlining these data sets into the Accela platform, the BPHC will be better equipped to help residents with their health care needs.”

The BPHC provides a wide range of health services and programs, which are available to Boston’s more than 645,000 residents. Prior to the upgrade, the independent public agency had been using a system of spreadsheets, paper-based systems and internally developed software. The BPHC opened in 1799, and Paul Revere was its first health officer.

“We were using fairly antiquated access databases, and we couldn’t take advantage of the updated collection in the field,” said Gerry Thomas, director of the BPHC’s community initiatives bureau. “We have a very diverse portfolio of programs and services, and staff who follow different processes. This gets everybody onto one process.”

Weiffenbach said he thought this project illustrated how Accela software can be applied to many types of businesses and business processes, and can enable these businesses to perform tasks that would not be possible without Accela’s hosting services.

“It’s been a huge advantage for an agency like the BPHC, with a restricted technology budget, to be able to leverage one of the top permitting and code enforcement systems in Accela’s hosted environment,” he said.

About Woolpert

Woolpert, ranked by Engineering News-Record as a top national design firm, provides professional architecture, engineering and geospatial services to clients in public and private sectors. Founded in 1911, and with more than 600 professionals in 25 offices located throughout the U.S., Woolpert’s collaborative and multidisciplinary approach is driven by great people, great clients and great projects. For more information on Woolpert, visit Woolpert.com. Woolpert Labs is a cross-functional group of industry leaders who are focused on discovering new uses for geospatial technology and practices to continue fueling advances in the industry. For more information, visit Woolpertlabs.com.