Our Technology
Technology is crucial to how we run our business, and we use the latest and most effective range of apps and systems to ensure our processes are seamless.
Our Technology
Technology is crucial to how we run our business, and we use the latest and most effective range of apps and systems to ensure our processes are seamless.
Soma iKon™
This application is Soma’s absentee management tool which allows for detailed monitoring of employee absence from work. Very granular detail regarding an employee’s absence, in particular sick leave, is captured via specific methodologies, one such protocol being via our web-based application where a ‘cell monitor’ is required to input relevant absentee data.
Once the absentee data has been updated to our database: – specific direct viewing modules are available for our clients and the Soma professional assessment team, which allows the employer and Soma to ascertain employee sick leave history, trends, and patterns of sick leave usage, sick leave taken adjacent to weekends and public holidays, length of absence concerning the given diagnosis, doctor patterns in granting sick leave, early identification of potential medical problems and so forth, thereby allowing for easy management and analysis of specific and/or multiple cases. The triggers for picking up early problems and trends as well as potential disability claims are continuously enhanced and expanded as the need for further specific information materialises.
Outline Interactive™
This application is a complete incapacity and disability / ill health retirement administrative management tool, allowing for detailed data capturing per employee, department, employer, company or fund, and extensive data mining.
Detailed administrative data, applications, claims, or cases are tracked and managed through a variety of preset stages, while specific automated time schedules can be employed. Different cases are allowed for, and additional types (with their predetermined stages) can be added. This software application is exceptionally powerful as it caters to our entire IT document management requirements. All documents related to incapacity leave and ill health assessments are linked to each case or application. Documents are related to the cases, as well as details of meetings, appointment scheduling, communication between parties, and so forth.
The public access component allows for clients to be issued with specific user identification and unique passwords, enabling each client to log onto the application via the web and ascertain statistical data and monitor the progress of cases, without the need to contact Soma directly. Strict security is applied to ensure that clients can only access their data and not those of any other client.
While reports can be drawn from the database for internal use and statistical analysis, the web application also enables clients to extract extensive data reports, tables, and graphs directly from the Soma server using specific data-inquiry parameters. Extensive and pinpointed data mining into our database is possible for a multitude of required reports and statistics.
M.I.N.I. Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview
Soma Initiative employs Medical Outcome Systems’ advanced web-based software, Dolphin EDC as a means of diagnosing psychiatric impairment quickly, reliably, and efficiently. The Dolphin EDC system was developed by the author of the M.I.N.I. Mini-International Neuropsychiatric Interview and assesses the symptoms of psychiatric patients according to DSM-IV and ICD-10 criteria in the context of workplace incapacity and disability.
The M.I.N.I. was designed to meet the need for a short but accurate structured diagnostic psychiatric interview. With an administrative time of less than 30 minutes, it is the structured interview of choice for psychiatric evaluation and outcome tracking in respect of psychiatric incapacity and disability within the workplace.
The M.I.N.I. is the most widely used psychiatric structured diagnostic interview instrument in the world. It is used by mental health professionals and health organizations in more than 100 countries. It was developed jointly in 1990 by psychiatrists and clinicians in the United States and Europe for DSM-IV and ICD-10 psychiatric disorders led by David V. Sheehan, M.D., M.B.A., Professor of Psychiatry and Director of Psychiatric Research, University of South Florida College of Medicine and Yves Lecrubier, M.D. Centre Hospitalier Sainte-Anne – Paris, France.
The M.I.N.I. programme is not designed or intended to be used in the place of the clinician in the diagnosis and/or treatment of psychiatric conditions. This complex arena requires a full medical and psychiatric evaluation by a fully qualified and registered psychiatrist. Soma uses the M.I.N.I. / Dolphin EDC web-based programme only as a tool for the purposes of determining employee incapacity and disability by processing psychiatric symptomatology exhibited by employees in the workplace.
Soma uses this copyrighted tool with written permission from Drs Y. Lecrubier and D.V. Sheehan.
Soma Help Desk (Vtiger CRM) – call logging and response tracking software
The Help Desk facility is manned on an eight-hour basis five days per week with Soma being able to respond to queries no matter from which province, region, or town such inquiry originates. All calls are logged onto the Soma Help Desk (Vtiger CRM) software application which allows for the easy tracking of queries and the specific management thereof, albeit at a later stage. This scalable web application allows users to log all support calls, escalate issues, close issues and so forth. It is essentially a full- blown CRM (Customer Relationship Manager) application allowing for unlimited users and a large scalable database repository. The Help Desk Operator is appropriately trained and has access to the operational databases, thus allowing for immediate sourcing of information for clients regarding the status of assessments or cases at hand. The system also allows for data-mining in terms of quantum of inquiries received, types of inquiries, response times et cetera. The tracking of all support calls is done on our web-based package and can be accessed via any web browser at www.soma-i.co.za/helpdesk.
In the event that the appropriate query cannot, for whatever reason, be dealt with at the time of the call the call is logged for the attention of senior management who are then tasked with the responsibility of contacting the caller to resolve the matter or provide advice as the case may be.
