In the iconic words of Ferris Bueller, “AI innovation moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
Okay, maybe that’s not exactly how it goes—but you get the idea. Plus, Ferris and his friends were all about making more time for what really matters in life, so we’re pretty sure they’d be big fans of the new Eleos Documentation experience. (Mr. Rooney—probably not so much.)
Also big fans of the new Eleos Documentation experience (and Eleos in general): the team at Hillsides, a California-based behavioral health organization that has fully embraced the unmatched power of AI in reducing provider burnout, recruiting and retaining top talent, streamlining documentation and compliance, and maximizing overall efficiency.
During our highly anticipated Spring Launch Event (which, as fate would have it, coincided with Ferris Bueller Day), Eleos CRO Dror Zaide was joined by a panel of business, clinical, and technical leaders at Hillsides to chat about:
- How they’ve integrated Eleos into their clinical and operational workflows,
- What kind of results they’ve seen thus far, and
- Why—in light of the current macroenvironment of regulatory changes, funding and reimbursement shakeups, and market volatility—embracing innovative tech is more important than ever.
They also touched on the latest features and functionality unlocked by the new Eleos Documentation experience—and how those enhancements have been received by staff. (Spoiler alert: They love it.)
Read on for a quick recap of the highlights—including a handful of short video clips from the event—or watch the full webinar recording here.
Taking Progress Notes from Tardy to Timely
Before Hillsides hopped aboard the AI train, documentation had long been a thorn in the side of their clinical teams.
“We were asking our therapists to turn in their signed notes 48 hours after a session, and they were having a hard time hitting that benchmark,” said Tom Foster, Director of IT at Hillsides.
Therapists were relying solely on memory to write their notes—sometimes days after sessions—often leading to low-quality, incomplete, or copy-pasted notes that left the organization vulnerable to audit-related penalties that jeopardized their financial health.
Want to see a side-by-side compliance analysis of notes written with and without Eleos? Download our Compliant Progress Note Examples here.
Before they began exploring AI, Hillsides had dabbled in collaborative documentation—and they were even looking into leveraging Windows dictation software to get note timeliness back on track. But those options were clunky, time-consuming, and—especially from the providers’ perspective—more trouble than they were worth.
The CalAIM Catalyst
Then in July 2023, the state of California introduced CalAIM—a reform initiative that, among other things, eliminated reimbursement for documentation time. With providers spending an average of 15–25 minutes per note, Hillsides literally couldn’t afford not to find a better solution—one that would soften the blow of no longer being able to bill for that time. “That was a catalyst to start looking for something to help our clinicians,” Foster said.
Finding Light-Touch Tech with Big-Impact Potential
As a veteran healthcare IT leader, Foster is well aware of the risks that come with implementing any new technology. Generally speaking, staff—especially those in clinical roles—tend to see new software as more of a hindrance than a help.
So, from the beginning, he knew any new tool Hillsides decided to bring onboard had to align perfectly with the way staff already worked—and it had to be incredibly easy to use.
“We needed something that was a light touch,” Foster said. “And we found that Eleos wasn’t much of a shift for our therapists and their workflow.”
After seeing the platform for themselves—and speaking with providers and leaders who had already rolled out Eleos Documentation in their organizations—the team at Hillsides felt confident that the platform would not only meet their rigorous tech requirements, but also plug effortlessly into their existing documentation infrastructure.
The AI Moment of Truth
That relentless focus on provider workflow paid off in a visible way during the team’s first live training with Eleos. As part of the training, providers completed a mock therapy session and watched in real time as Eleos analyzed the therapist-client conversation and generated the associated progress note suggestions. Their reaction was priceless.
“Staff literally stood up and were cheering like it was a sporting event,” Foster recalled. “I’ve been part of a lot of technical trainings, and I’ve never seen anything like that before. At that point, I had a feeling we were on to something.”
Iris Lopez, LMFT, Division Chief of Community-Based Services at Hillsides, knew exactly where that excitement was coming from. As a former therapist herself, she’s all too familiar with the pain of paperwork. “When I saw the demo, I kept thinking, ‘Where were you, Eleos, in the early 2000s when I was a clinician?’”
Want a deeper look at how Eleos works? Watch a 5-minute demo here.
Rising Above the Hype with Real Results
The Hillsides team’s early enthusiasm for Eleos quickly translated into measurable impact.
“Before we started with Eleos, we surveyed our therapists and asked them how long it was taking them to do notes the old way,” Foster explained. “It was 15–25 minutes per note. After we launched, we could see time to complete notes went from that to 6–7 minutes right away.”
That led to more notes being submitted within the required 48-hour window—with many finalized in under 24 hours. And as Stacey Roth, CEO of Hillsides, explained, that improvement had major ramifications for not only the organization’s financial health, but also their data hygiene.
“From an administrative perspective, for years we were dealing with late notes,” Roth said. “We didn’t know what services we were providing—what providers were actually doing. Before, we wouldn’t have June data until August. Now, with Eleos, I could tell you what we billed last week, and probably what we billed on Monday and Tuesday.”
Achieving Even More with the New Documentation Experience
Just when they thought the so-called “Eleos Effect” couldn’t get any better, the team at Hillsides was introduced to the latest product upgrade: the new Eleos Documentation experience. This reimagined version of Eleos’ core documentation product—shaped by feedback from 150+ partner organizations—empowers providers to capture notes more seamlessly, support multilingual care, work offline, and document more session types. Lopez highlighted two new features in particular that Hillsides staff have gravitated toward:
- The ability to capture sessions and start notes from their mobile devices.
- The ability to run sessions in Spanish and have Eleos automatically generate a note in English—no manual translation required.
“For our field-based staff, the fact that they can use their phone to capture their notes and start their notes—that is a game-changer,” Lopez said, adding that the text summary feature—which allows providers to create a full note by typing in a few short bullet points—has been especially popular among mobile users.
And the new multi-language feature—which is compatible with more than 150 languages—has helped bilingual providers stay more present and engaged during their sessions, because they’re no longer worried about translating what has occurred once they sit down to write the note.
“Because we work with a lot of monolingual Spanish-speaking families, being able to do the session in their native language and then have Eleos translate that—even though the clinicians are bilingual—has been an amazing tool for them,” Lopez explained.
Positioning Hillsides as a California Employer of Choice
Because Hillsides was one of the first behavioral health organizations in California to embrace purpose-built AI, they’ve been able to leverage it as a competitive advantage in the race to recruit and retain top clinical talent.
In fact, word about Hillsides’ use of Eleos has spread across LA County and beyond—catching the attention of potential job candidates.
“It’s pretty cool that now we use Eleos as a way to lure people to our organization,” Roth said. “Other organizations are jealous when they hear about how our staff morale has improved with Eleos. It’s been a rough 5 years since 2020, and being able to provide this for our clinicians and treatment staff has been a game-changer.”
The lift in staff satisfaction and wellbeing has trickled down to the clients as well: in a recent survey submitted by over 200 Hillsides clients, nearly 99% reported feeling like their providers are more present. “This is a testament of how we’ve used Eleos with our staff,” Lopez said. “They don’t feel like they have to split their time. Just knowing Eleos is going to capture [everything] for you—that’s a game-changer.”
Building Trust, Not Just Tech
As the market continues to be flooded with AI solutions—Roth says she gets emails from new platforms hawking their wares every day—the Hillsides team emphasized the importance of evaluating not only the vendor’s technology, but also their commitment to being a true partner for your organization and staff.
“For me, what set Eleos apart was the transparency—the sense of professionalism in everything they do,” Roth said. “I really felt a sense that they understood the market.”
Lopez echoed that sentiment: “For over a year, we met with the [Eleos] team every week. You are mindful and follow through with what we, as customers, want. You deliver. That is important.”
Looking Ahead to the Future
Hillsides has been so happy with their use of Eleos Documentation that they recently decided to roll out Eleos Compliance to further improve note quality and reduce audit risk. “Our QA team can only do so much,” Foster said. “Having visibility into notes being written to make sure they’re not duplicates, that they’re full and rich and tied to the treatment plan, is the next natural step for us.”
Curious how Eleos Compliance is helping behavioral health organizations review 20x more notes and deliver provider feedback 180x faster? Check out this customer story.
But even with growing AI support, Hillsides’ leadership emphasized that their providers always remain at the center of care. While tools like Eleos offer unprecedented support for the often tedious and time-consuming work that occurs outside of the therapy room, they can never replace the empathy, skill, and care that human behavioral health professionals bring to every client session.
In Lopez’s words, “You still have to be the clinician. Eleos is capturing what we’ve done. But we still have to provide the modality—do the interventions. That doesn’t change.”
With so much uncertainty in the healthcare world (and the world in general) right now, it can be hard to look beyond the chaos and think long-term—and even harder to justify investing in new technology, even when the upside is clear.
But the organizations that see this moment as an opportunity to be proactive rather than reactive—who choose to rise above, not just ride it out—will be the ones who not only weather the storm, but emerge stronger than ever.
As Ferris Bueller would say, “Only the meek get pinched. The bold survive.”
Ready to experience the impact of Eleos Documentation for yourself? Request a demo of our industry-leading AI platform now.
