Success Story: American Health Care Association & National Center for Assisted Living
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Summary
The American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL) needed a software platform to help conduct elections and operational votes during virtual and hybrid in-person/virtual meetings. The organization chose SBS’ Real-Time Election Voting Software, and has been very pleased to date with the functionality, simplicity and security it has delivered.
About the American Health Care Association / National Center for Assisted Living
AHCA/NCAL is the largest association in the United States representing long term and post-acute care providers, with more than 14,000 member facilities. Its diverse membership includes non-profit and proprietary skilled nursing centers, assisted living communities, sub-acute centers and homes for individuals with intellectual and development disabilities. By delivering solutions for quality care, AHCA/NCAL aims to improve the lives of the millions of frail, elderly and individuals with disabilities who receive long term or post-acute care in its member facilities each day.
For more information, visit www.ahcancal.org.
The Challenge
AHCA/NCAL governing bodies hold meetings twice each year. Before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, these meetings would take place in person and traditional balloting and voting methods would be used. Since, however, AHCA/NCAL has held its meetings in fully virtual or hybrid in-person/virtual formats, rendering those conventional voting systems moot. The organization needed a new system that could integrate with its new meeting formats and enable people to vote and make decisions virtually.
The Solution
A search commenced for the best tool(s) to use to hold meetings and conduct votes. After a review, the organization chose to use SBS’ Real-Time Election Voting Solution: a software-as-a-service platform that enables voting groups to securely conduct their business regardless of whether people are connecting in person, virtually or in a hybrid meeting.
Administrators also worked with the SBS team to stage and conduct multiple test meetings. There were plenty of opportunities to learn the platform, anticipate potential meeting problems and develop efficiencies for the entire process.
Results and Benefits
Since starting to use the real-time voting software in 2020, the platform has worked perfectly for AHCA/NCAL. The organization has already held four meetings and taken several votes using the tool, and everything has gone off without a hitch. In addition, over a dozen state affiliate associations have utilized the solution in various meetings and votes.
- All voters cast their ballots anonymously, and those votes were counted in real time – in contrast to the 15-30 minutes it used to take administrators to count votes and certify decisions at in-person meetings. Everyone, from organization executives to voting delegates, found this much more efficient and productive.
- Everyone – the multiple administrators, the roughly 50-60 voting delegates in each meeting, organizational executives, etc. – have really liked the platform and found it very simple to use. Not everyone around the organization is tech-savvy, but the platform has made it easy for them to conduct business.
- AHCA/NCAL found the software to be affordable, and a good value for the money.
- Administrators have found the solution enables them to add/change voter information on the fly. This makes for more seamless meeting administration and voting.
- The organization is pleased with the platform’s high level of security. There’s more confidence now that votes are accurate than before, when vote tabulations were done by hand.
Given the success of AHCA/NCAL’s use of the platform, the organization will use the real-time voting software for all its meetings going forward – no matter the format.