StaffPlan
From Telehealth
StaffPlan is a leading supplier of innovative rostering, administration, monitoring and point of care systems to the community care industry. Our clients include local authorities, PCTs, major care provider groups, leading franchises and not for profit organisations throughout the UK and globally across four continents.
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StaffPlan Connect
StaffPlan Connect is a revolutionary point of care solution designed for providers of Community Care, Extra Care and Supported Living. With Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled mobile phones StaffPlan Connect combines real time monitoring and two way communication with care workers.
As well as delivering live rosters to care workers via their mobile phones, StaffPlan Connect allows actual arrival and departure times to be recorded by care workers touching in and out of each visit with their NFC enabled mobile phone against a small RFID tag placed in the service user's home.
The data collected via StaffPlan Connect is fed back to the StaffPlan Roster system in real time and updates bookings with actual service delivery information, essential for the effective management of service delivery and streamlining financial processes.
How It Works... for care workers
Click to enlargeCare workers are assigned an ID card, equipped with an individually assigned RFID tag, which allows them to Touch In with their NFC enabled phone to view their schedule. Details of each booking, including service user contact details, tasks to be completed, and any special instructions, such as access details are available at the touch of a button, thus eliminating the need for paper rosters and time sheets.
Care workers simply Touch In upon arrival at a service user's home and Touch Out when they leave, giving them maximum contact time with the service user. If they forget to Touch In, the mobile phone will notify the care worker to remind them, even when there is no mobile phone service. StaffPlan Connect delivers full functionality to care workers even when it's offline.
How It Works... in the office
By placing an individually assigned Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tag at a service user's home, office staff are able to see in real time where their field workers are. Care workers simply Touch In with their NFC enabled phone when they arrive, and Touch Out when they leave. As they do this, StaffPlan Connect records the time, identifies the service user and the care worker and relays this information automatically to the scheduling system, eliminating the need to manually confirm bookings.
StaffPlan Connect stores the information and relays it when service is re-connected. In the case that a care worker does not Touch In at a booking start time, StaffPlan Connect will raise an appropriate alarm. As StaffPlan Connect is fully integrated with the scheduling system, office staff can keep care workers up to date with scheduling changes. When used in conjunction with StaffPlan Roster, notes and messages are also shared thus allowing office staff to keep care workers fully informed at all times. With the integration between StaffPlan Connect and the scheduling system, office staff are able to re-assign an absent care worker's bookings and the changes made to other care workers schedules are available to them immediately through their mobile phone.
Key Benefits
- Real Time Monitoring
As care workers Touch In with their NFC enabled phone when they arrive at a service user's home and Touch Out when they leave, the information is relayed through StaffPlan Connect to the scheduling system. This allows office staff to be up to date on care workers' whereabouts.
If a care worker does not Touch In at a booking within a designated time office staff are alerted, allowing them to react swiftly. StaffPlan Connect keeps office staff in touch with field workers, keeps field workers in touch with the office staff and keeps both in touch with your clients.
- Security
With StaffPlan Connect, field workers don't need to carry hard copy files on service users containing names, addresses, sensitive access information, medical conditions, etc. The information they need for a booking is sent directly to their mobile phone, but can only be accessed when they log in securely with their personal tag.
As each phone and ID card is associated with a single care worker, the personal tag assignment and the phone assignment must match before StaffPlan Connect will log the care worker in. Even if a care worker loses their phone after they have logged in, the system will log them off after a short, user-defined period making it unlikely that sensitive information can become public through a lost or stolen phone.
All communication over the internet uses secure encryption, so personal data cannot be intercepted.
- Seamless Integration to Scheduling Systems
StaffPlan Connect is integrated with supported scheduling systems, such as StaffPlan Roster. When a care worker touches in and touches out at a service user's home, the booking, the time, the identity of the service user and the identity of the care worker is confirmed through StaffPlan Connect to the scheduling system, eliminating the need to manually confirm bookings.
- Scheduling
When changes are made to care workers' schedules in the office, if for example bookings need to be covered as a care worker is sick, the changes are relayed in real time from the scheduling system to StaffPlan Connect and to the relevant care worker's mobile phone.
- Ease of Use
StaffPlan Connect uses standard mobile phone navigation, so users familiar with mobile phones will be able to navigate through the various functions of StaffPlan Connect easily and with minimal training.
Although StaffPlan Connect is designed for NFC enabled phones, the software also works on any Java enabled phone giving users full access to StaffPlan Connect.
- Lone Worker Safety
Connect can be configured to raise alarms if a care worker is late leaving a booking, giving staff the assurance that a colleague will be following up if they are in serious difficulties. There are also obvious lone worker safety benefits in having a mobile phone that can have speed dials set up to call the office (or out of hours service).
- Diagram of Benefits
A "mindmap" poster showing the various benefits of a point of care system, most of which apply to the current release of StaffPlan Connect, was presented at the National Children and Adult Services Conference 2008 in Liverpool. Click here to see a PDF version.
