Co-ordinating domiciliary homecare visits and keeping track of where the care worker went, at what time, and the tasks they performed there is difficult at the best of times. As well as supplying carers with up-to-date client-related information, you also need to keep them informed of their planned visits and any changes that have occurred recently.

Mobile solutions for carers

Perhaps your carers should be given PDAs or smart-phones, maybe with GPS (satnav) tracking as well? Sounding too complicated and expensive? Why not stick to traditional tools like paper rosters and landline telephone systems (CLI)? But paper information is out-of-date the minute it is printed, and CLI is usually limited to basic clocking in/out without giving you 100% coverage, meaning additional manual confirmation.

Give me something simple !!

What you really want is something simple and cost-effective for the care worker to use. A solution that proves where they are, that lets them get information to their phone about planned visits and individual clients, and lets them record completed tasks or incidents that have occurred at a client. That’s where Reslink’s mobile phone applications can help – solutions that are used by care workers in many countries already.

“Tagging” locations

A tagged location is somewhere your employee visits that you want to record information at. Normally that would be a client location – their front door, or the client file kept at their home. It could also be the carer’s vehicle, if you want them to record information about vehicle usage. These locations can be tagged using a variety of methods depending on your requirements, but typically would be done by placing RFID tags, 2D, or 1D barcodes there, that the carer quickly scans with a phone to identify where they are.

Location-based services

Whenever an employee visits a tagged location, as well as giving you instant proof they have been there, they may also be provided with services on their phone specific to them at that location. For example, a carer can record tasks done, after first retrieving the list of tasks for that client to their phone. It is easy to customize the services offered for the different types of tagged locations your carers visit. It is just as easy to provide a carer with services that are not related to a location, such as getting “Today’s job list” or “Tomorrow’s job list”, which they can do on their phone at any time.

Main features

* Proof that the carer visited clients – times In and Out
* Alerts if they failed to do so (email and/or SMS)
* Retrieval of client info to phone – contact names, history, etc
* Recording of other data – tasks performed, incidents occurred
* Real-time web-based view of every carer
* Sending of messages to carers phones
* Lone worker protection – panic tags, missed visit alerts
* Full history of every carer and every client transaction
* Recording of vehicle and expense information
* Can be integrated to other workforce management systems

Solution benefits

• Carer needs only a “normal” mobile phone, not a PDA or smart-phone

• Instant web-based view of where the carer is now, and what happening there
• Immediate notification of missed visits or carers in danger
• Easy cost-effective sending of messages to carers

• Carer can see their up-to-the-minute job schedule at any time
• The latest information about a client is always in their hand
• Anything that happens at a client can be recorded (text, photo, sound)
• Eliminates paper rosters, visit records, incident reports, vehicle/expense reports