Bluebird Care based in Bath is the first home care provider in the region to provide its care workers with a mobile monitoring solution to drive efficiencies and improve quality of care.
iConnect from Advanced Health & Care is being supplied to 60 care workers from Bluebird Care from this week. Bluebird Care is part of the Bluebird Care franchise network, a national provider of care at home.
iConnect delivers real-time task lists and data to care workers via their mobile phones and records their actual arrival and departure times at customers’ homes using near-field communication (NFC) technology. The need for care workers to carry around paper rosters showing where they need to be and when will be eliminated using iConnect and customers will no longer be asked to sign pieces of paper to prove care workers’ attendance at appointments.
Each care worker is being supplied with a touchscreen Samsung mobile phone for use with the iConnect solution and Advanced is also providing Bluebird Care with competitive airtime rates.
Tim Rowland Jones, Managing Director of Bluebird Care, said: “The use of iConnect will improve efficiencies and provide us with greater transparency around care delivery. We’ll know exactly when our care workers arrive and leave customers’ homes and there will no longer be a reliance on paper rosters and follow-up phone calls between the office and care workers when appointments need rearranging.”
Bluebird Care also expects to reduce its phone costs by 10 per cent and its paper, printing and postage costs by 50 per cent using iConnect.
The benefits to customers of iConnect include improved visibility around care worker appointments. If care workers are running late, for example, the customers and their families will be able to be notified in a timelier manner, providing reassurance. It will also be much easier for Bluebird Care to rearrange care workers’ appointments whilst they are ‘on the move’ to accommodate last minute changes. In addition, the stress surrounding asking a customer to sign a proof of attendance document will be eliminated.
Tim addded: “We are committed to providing the very best quality of care to our 200 customers. This latest mobile solution will ensure we continue to provide the highest levels of service whilst operating as efficiently and cost-effectively as possible.”
