Merri-Shannon Herndon says she is a social worker at heart. When she stepped into LSC’s electronic medical records (EMR) administrator position, her goal was to make the systems as efficient as possible so social workers could spend less time doing paperwork and more time with the children they serve.
“When we think of all the things that social workers do for the children, individuals, and families, and how far they go beyond to support the people we serve, the bottom line is we, the support people, have to go just as far to support them,” Herndon said. “That’s the bottom line.”
After graduating from Coker University with bachelor’s degrees in social work and psychology, Herndon began her career as a human service specialist at the South Carolina Department of Social Services. In 2012, she accepted a position as a lead clinical specialist with LSC’s South Carolina foster care team.
While she was working on that team, LSC began to transfer to a new electronic medical records system.
“I volunteered for the setup team because I was a social worker who had too much paperwork to do, and it was taking up too much of my social work time. I lost time with the children because of the amount of paperwork and how it had to be done,” Herndon said. “From my perspective, if I was on the team helping set up this system, I could make sure the forms and things they set up for us in foster care were easy to complete and more efficient. That way we could spend more time with the children and the families.”
Herndon went to work, building easy-to-use forms inside of the system for her foster care team, and then eventually all LSC’s South Carolina child and family programs. She was surprised to find that she loved building the system from the ground up.
Eventually, she moved from the foster care team and became the EMR administrator.
As the administrator for multiple health information management systems, Herndon provides organizational and individualized configurations for over 20 programs that serve over 3,000 child, adult, and family recipients annually. She also manages data reporting, quality and compliance tools, electronic forms, onboarding, and provides user support for approximately 300 system users in North and South Carolina.
“We could have hired somebody from outside who understood systems, but we couldn’t get somebody from outside who understood LSC,” Herndon said. “In this niche of building out a software system to meet the needs of social workers, or nurses, teachers and clinicians, you need somebody who’s done that kind of work and knows what needs to be documented.”
You Are the Key
It is obvious that Herndon’s peers appreciate her support because they selected her as the 2022 You Are the Key Teammate of the Year for LSC’s child and family services.
The LSC Way is a culture of exceptional customer services that aligns the mission, vision, and values of LSC. The program encourages all LSC teammates to lead by example, serve joyfully, communicate consistently, welcome all, and ensure abundant living for all. The You are the Key Award is given to the exceptional teammate who exemplifies all these qualities consistently.
“Merri-Shannon never asks anything of anyone that she doesn’t do herself,” the nomination said. “If something needs to be done differently, she is the first to learn it and make the change. She spends hours of her free time learning everything she can of our software systems.”
When she was announced as the winner during the child and family Christmas party, Herndon was shocked. She was trying to move out of the way to make room for the winner to stand in front of everyone. Then she realized the description sounded like hers.
“I was totally shocked. I was moving out of the way. And then I was trying to listen and get out of the way, and he’s talking about stuff. It sounds like me, he keeps looking at me…” Herndon said. “It means a lot to me. This award is really special because it’s who we are. The LSC Way is how we do things and the approach we take to things. For somebody to think that I have those qualities means a lot. But on top of that, to know it was my peers who nominated me and my peers who voted means a whole lot more.”
She doesn’t work directly with children and families anymore, but she does support the people who do.
“Social workers give so much of themselves. The very least we can do is give them as much of ourselves as they give to the people we serve,” she said. “They need to know that somebody cares about how things affect them and how somebody is trying to make it more efficient and better so they can do what they love to do.”