Luma-Legend: Crystal Ciszek shares 3 key elements for successful ABA practice management
Believing wholeheartedly that all Lumary employees globally share the same vision for helping individuals and communities is at the core of who we are. Crystal Ciszek is no exception. As a passionate former RBT, special education teacher and operations director, Crystal evokes her extensive knowledge and experience into developing leading market software for ABA providers.
Nearly 15 years ago, while Crystal was working as a special education teacher, she noticed a positive change within a few of her student’s post-summer break. These students had not only retained skills, but they had also learned new ones too! After connecting with their parents, she came to learn that these positive changes were due to them starting ABA therapy services.
Having such a profound impact on these kiddos, she decided to dedicate herself to the field of Applied Behavior Analysis. Shortly thereafter she realized that she had a passion for helping these organizations with their operational efficiencies so that more children could access these services. By improving the management of ABA practices, she could help many more children than she could within her classroom. Taking on a leadership role, she was able to better support clinicians and their goal of outcome-based care.
“It was about setting our children up for success by getting them to a space where they can advocate for themselves in any environment.”
Prior to Lumary, Crystal worked across multiple States managing several aspects of the former organization such as business development, talent acquisition, intake coordination, scheduling and human resources.
“As a start up, we wore many different hats and it was extremely demanding. However, that allowed us to see every angle of our practice’s operational needs. Our team developed various organizational strategies and created new workflows, which ultimately resulted in becoming more efficient at providing high-quality care.”
During Crystal’s time in business development, 3 key elements stood out to her as fundamentals to the group’s success. Having a single source of truth, utilization of organizational data and clear communication channels. Overall highlighting that an end-to-end practice management solution can profoundly impact organizational success.
Single Source of Truth
Crystal recognizes that administrative tasks can be overwhelming and sometimes depend on a singular person’s expertise and/or knowledge. This often results in workflows being siloed. With an end-to-end practice management software, you no longer need to rely on a singular person to prompt the next task within a workflow. With a platform like Lumary, everyone has visibility into the next steps and any outstanding items on an intuitive and user-friendly interface.
“A single source of truth provides everyone with clarity and ultimately results in better care for the client. Employees are also able to have a better work-life balance as their knowledge or outstanding tasks no longer have to live with them solely, but can now be supported within the organization.”
Utilization of Data
Crystal stated that ABA strategies are very data-driven in achieving program individualization which focuses on outcome-based care. However, most organizations do not have visibility into their own client and employee onboarding data. A solution that maintains this data allows providers to make informed hiring decisions and creates transparency into their client projections.
“With a platform like Lumary ABA, you can hone in on a plethora of organizational metrics so that your team is able to make informed decisions pertaining to operational efficiencies and therefore provide better care.”
Clear Communication
Crystal’s 3rd key element for success is communication. Cross-department communication allows for a greater connection and makes employees feel like there is a team behind every client. Crystal says that by having this commandery, you can see staff retention increase as everyone feels that they are an integral part of something bigger.
“A simple feature such as Chatter, which allows individuals like, comment and share updates with their team can really give employees a voice within the organization.”
By having topical group chats, everyone can communicate with ease and offer support all while sharing resources and experiences. No matter where the clinicians or therapists are located, they will always feel connected to their team and the organization.
“In ABA, there has never really been a practice management platform that could reflect the group as a whole. A system where their vision and mission are shared and fostered, no matter the distance between practice locations or team members.”
As the field of ABA continues to grow and evolve, Crystal believes that there will be increasing importance placed on operational best practices. Therefore, it is essential that providers use an agile platform so that they can successfully scale while these demands increase.
Reach out to Crystal now to schedule a demo or connect on Linkedin.