Caring for the elderly and those with disabilities has never been more important. During the Covid crisis being able to do so safely whilst maintaining care standards and compassion has been even more difficult than usual.
A recent project for North East Nursing was focused on helping them manage their staff remotely and ensuring staff and clients are receiving the absolute best in terms of support and care. North East Nursing contacted us as they needed a way for:
- Staff to be managed remotely.
- Nursing and care shifts to be distributed to staff in a fair way.
- Staff and client interactions to be logged in a centralised system for monitoring and reporting.
Whilst quite a complex set of requirements we approached the project as we always do. Firstly with consultancy to discover what exactly was required. We then created a specification alongside staff and management to agree what was to be built and then we built the solution in tandem with North East Nursing.
The solution in this case was a mobile app for staff to be notified of shifts they are suitable for and for those same staff to notify the NEN management team they wanted to complete the shift. All of this was done using SMS messaging. We also built a web application to manage the creation of shift patterns and the management of all client and staff details.
Historically the company would manage shifts by manually sending out text messages to staff with a mobile. This was very time consuming, text messages could take hours/days to reach everyone due to the volume needed to be sent. Replies would then need to be recorded manually and updated onto a system – again manually. Mistakes were time consuming to rectify and the onus was always on the staff to do everything and do it perfectly each and every every time.
As the company was growing the current way of working was no longer sustainable so they approached us to build them a shift management application to improve and replace the ‘model’ they were using.
Problem
- The text messaging platform was taking hours/days to send out the volume of messages.
- The messaging platform would restrict the messages due to fair use policy so not everyone would receive the messages.
- Someone had to manually fill out the rota on a mobile phone which is an unsustainable model and error prone.
- Shifts were accepted by text using the same mobile which then had to be updated on the office system.
- The whole process was very inefficient and further growth in the business would exacerbate this problem.
Solution
A bespoke web application was designed and developed capable of rendering on mobile devices. Most businesses believe they need a mobile app but with advancements in technology and more and more people being always connected to a data source means this isn’t always the case.
Building a proper mobile app is expensive and complicated and in this case unnecessary. The web app allows the company to manage shifts and automatically send out text notifications to all its members.
Those members need an account but can manage all their shifts using their mobile or tablet/laptop/PC with a data connection or wifi connection in real-time.
This is a cost effective bespoke solution that works really well for the business.
Annie Fawcett, Managing Director says:
“Sapere consulted us on every step and explained everything in a clear, concise way. We are more than happy with the result and would highly recommend Sapere to prospective customers”