In our last Thentia blog post, we discussed the advantages of using cloud-based technology in the regulatory space. Overall, government agencies save money, time, and staff resources when they migrate their systems to the cloud.
We also discussed the specific benefits of Thentia Cloud, a software platform built to meet the needs of any regulator – one that, among other things, provides powerful data analytics tools and allows an almost instantaneous transfer of information between users.
But who are these users, exactly? Who benefits from using Thentia Cloud? The easy answer, of course, is regulators and licensees. But within these umbrellas, and even outside of them, there are many individuals and organizations who can harness the power of Thentia Cloud’s simple, configurable software solution in their own way to perform regulatory and regulatory-adjacent tasks.
Here we will take a brief look at who uses Thentia Cloud, how they use it, and how the software benefits these users in their daily work.
Agency staff
Regulatory staff members are perhaps the most obvious beneficiaries of Thentia Cloud’s software solution. One obstacle in creating a platform that works for every regulator is that agency size, structure, and function can vary between regulators, so the strength of an office’s workforce and the roles of its staff can look quite different depending on the given office.
For example, certain agencies have roles that others do not. Some find themselves short-staffed, which can force employees to take on multiple roles at once. Thanks to the software’s modular design and overall configurability, regulatory offices of all sizes and shapes can find what their staff members need in Thentia Cloud. Its system can be adapted to the nuances of each agency and its processes very quickly with minimal customization and coding.
Automation is a substantial part of what Thentia Cloud provides to regulatory agencies. Thanks to automation, certain daily processes can be handled in the background while employees can refocus their energy on more important initiatives and matters that require human judgment. Some clients have said using Thentia Cloud is almost equivalent to having an additional employee.
Complaints managers can use the software to digitally process complaints, uploading all relevant notes and evidence into one centralized platform. Application intake staff can easily collect and consolidate all necessary material on a prospective licensee. Employees who handle both can configure Thentia Cloud to provide those two functions and seamlessly move between them.
Inspectors, too, use the software to schedule inspections, keep records, and comprehensively track their work. Thentia Cloud’s ability to streamline, digitize, and optimize workflows enables agency staff of any configuration to be more productive and to divert human resources toward the places where they are most needed.
Licensees
It’s not just agency staff members, either – licensees also benefit substantially from Thentia Cloud’s streamlined platform. In a world that demands instant results, Thentia Cloud provides the immediate access licensees need. Whether they are applicants or certified professionals, users can view their license status in real time and self-manage their profiles to include up-to-date information on addresses, employers, and more.
Licensees can also instantly receive a self-serve digital license certificate and wallet card, which can allow them to avoid a potentially tedious postal back-and-forth with their regulators. They can also avoid paper-based processes by requesting name and status changes within Thentia Cloud’s interface.
Whether it’s processing application fees, updating a practitioner’s continuing education status, or facilitating speedy communication between license holders and regulators, Thentia Cloud is designed to simplify the procurement and maintenance of licenses for professionals throughout every step of the process.
The public
Licensed professionals provide specialized services to members of the public. Regulators exist, on a fundamental level, to protect the public interest. Whether they realize it or not, public citizens are inherently involved in the regulatory process and the relationship between licensed professionals and government agencies.
It follows that any worthwhile regulatory software should work for the public just as much as it works for licensees and regulators, and Thentia Cloud does just that. For example, the platform contains a centralized public database where users can quickly access relevant licensee information in real time, enabling the average citizen to make smart, informed decisions about their service providers.
Thentia Cloud also offers a robust complaint management system that allows individuals to file complaints against professionals with ease and efficiency. Its digital public form includes a document uploader for relevant evidence, removing paper and postage from the process and simplifying the user experience.
Complainants can also view the status of their complaint, as well as any penalties that may have been levied against the licensee in question, all in real time. Simply put, as a platform built for regulators, Thentia Cloud is also, by definition, a platform built for the public. That’s why it provides the level of transparency, accessibility, and informational accuracy the average citizen deserves.
Educational institutions
Continuing education (CE) is critical to maintaining licensure for almost all professionals. Though a certain degree of subject area expertise is shown in the licensee’s ability to obtain certification in the first place, regulators have a vested interest in making sure practitioners are continuously educated and kept up to date on the latest trends and developments in their fields.
Cloud-based licensing software, with all its potential, should work to keep government agencies, professionals, and educational institutions all on the same page with regards to CE requirements. That’s why Thentia Cloud features a configurable continuing education module that can communicate with learning management systems (LMS) and meet the unique CE criteria of each license type.
Though years ago, educators may have had to manually verify CE credits with students and their regulators, current-day cloud tech can allow an institution to integrate its LMS with a platform like Thentia Cloud so that the software pulls this information straight from the school’s database. It also enables institutions to manage student registrations and to record, submit, and track experience hours.
Board members
Anybody who has worked in government regulation has seen that daily work processes for regulatory boards everywhere are usually manual, labor-intensive, and tiresome. Board members often must rely on slow, outdated methods like postage and paper-based communication to maintain healthy and productive partnerships with regulators.
Thentia Cloud modernizes this process for both regulators and board members alike. Using the staff portal, regulators can quickly add or remove board and committee members, set term start and end dates, assign new members to specific committees, and easily access historical member records in the audit history tool.
Board and committee members can also easily sign into the platform to access documents and other important information. They can schedule meetings and reminders, set agendas for discussion, record attendance, and document meeting outcomes, among many other functions. In short, Thentia’s cloud-based software solution has the potential to mitigate heavy workloads for board members everywhere.
There is an expansive range of personnel (both inside and outside of government offices) involved in licensing and regulation who can use Thentia Cloud to bring their daily work processes into the 21st century. The sheer number of user types that this software accommodates just goes to show the expansive and wide-ranging power of its single, digital, cloud-based platform.
To learn more about how data-driven technology can benefit regulators in their day-to-day work, read our recent whitepaper, The Promise of Data-Driven Regulation.
