Partner Article

Premier Care Dorset improves communication and reduces administration costs by 50% with iConnect from Advanced

Premier Care Dorset (Premier) has reduced administration costs by 50% and significantly improved staff communication after implementing iConnect, a mobile monitoring solution provided by Advanced Health & Care (Advanced). Advanced also provided mobile handsets and airtime to Premier, which went live with iConnect in November 2013.

Dorset County Council’s contract team became aware of Premier’s successful use of the software and recently visited with the organisation to see how iConnect is both driving down costs and benefiting service users.

Premier Care Dorset employs 75 staff and provides care to 220 people within a 20 mile radius of its head office in Ferndown. Care workers are using the mobile solution in conjunction with Advanced’s rostering application, Staffplan, to communicate schedules, appointments and client information to their field-based colleagues.

iConnect enables Premier’s office based team to send real-time task lists and data to care worker colleagues via their mobile phones, records actual arrival and departure times at clients’ homes using near-field communication (NFC) technology.

Care workers can log-in to iConnect to view their roster and access information about a client or appointment. Office based staff can also send updates to care workers electronically to their mobile devices, as and when the need arises. Overall Premier is using the solution to manage an average of 2,000 bookings per week.

Cliff de Jong, Company Secretary, Premier Care Dorset comments: “Traditionally we have communicated rostering information to staff by post and via text messages and this has been both time consuming and expensive. It very quickly became clear that iConnect would enable us to reduce time and expenditure related to communications.

“Advanced’s software has already enabled us to reduce costs related to post, paper, toner cartridges and texting by 50% which will save us thousands of pounds each year. We are saving time too. We have managed to reduce the time it takes to collate and manage timesheet information from three days a week to just one. As a result, we now have more time to focus on other activities.”

The mobile monitoring solution is also enabling the company to capture and analyse the amount of time care workers spend with clients and has improved client information security.

Cliff explains, “The fact that iConnect has eliminated the need for care workers to carry paper rosters and client information has been fundamental to improving data security. We send staff information via their phones – which can only be viewed once they have logged on, and this means that client information is completely secure.”

“By looking at arrival and departure times, we can now analyse the amount of time staff currently spend with clients and identify when clients need to be charged more or less. As a result we have been able to reduce care related costs for Dorset County Council’s social services.”

Premier has additionally improved lone worker safety by configuring iConnect to raise alarms if a care worker is late leaving a booking, thus giving staff assurance that a colleague will provide support in difficult situations.

“If a care worker does not arrive at a client’s home or is late leaving, the system flags it up. Staff feedback has been highly positive - they are reassured that we are able to monitor their safety in this way,” concludes Cliff.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Advanced .