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Community healthcare workers can double the amount of available time to spend in front of patients as a result of a new mobile application from communications specialist Skillweb.
Recent research suggests that, due to the current administrative systems in place, as little as 18 to 30 per cent of a community healthcare worker’s day is made up of patient facing time.
“The SmartTask solution is set to revolutionise how community teams are coordinated by improving diary management, removing unnecessary travel and duplicate reporting. The result will be considerably more time spent actually interacting face to face with patients,” explains Paul Ridden, Managing Director at Skillweb.
Community healthcare workers such as midwives, district nurses and mental health clinicians, will no longer have to travel to the office each day to collect their schedule. Instead, staff using SmartTask will be able to receive details of planned and ad hoc appointments electronically via a mobile device, removing as much as 1.5 hours from their daily travel.
Essential patient details can be captured via SmartTask so that community workers can simply input the information once, rather than up to six times per visit using alternative paper-based systems. Meanwhile, the ability to transfer appointments between team members will slash the time taken to reschedule bookings when emergencies occur.
A shared real-time view of staff diaries will achieve enhanced management visibility to help deliver straightforward, stress-free team co-ordination. SmartTask has been designed to support the NHS QIPP (Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention) programme and contribute to more than £6 billion of savings targeted by the Department of Health in improved staff productivity and by providing efficient, integrated community services.
The mobile software application can be delivered via a range of rugged, semi-rugged, commercial and mobile phone technology, and is suitable for all Blackberry and Windows Mobile devices. In addition, SmartTask’s online portal can be easily integrated with other back-office PAS systems to streamline operational procedures and minimise administrative requirements. In particular, it will enable healthcare organisations to speed up the booking of clinical appointments by automating the requests process.
“Community healthcare workers are increasingly bogged down by administration and want to spend more quality time with patients. This technology will free up their time by effectively replacing paper-based and laptop diary tasking solutions and this in turn will have a radical effect on patient care,” concludes Paul Ridden.
Skillweb is a leading mobile communications company within the UK with more than 11 years providing technology solutions that help organisations manage their mobile workforces and track the movement of goods. The company has been awarded Approved Service Recipient status under IGSoC (Information Governance Statement of Compliance), allowing connection to the N3 Network and securing patient data.
