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07 Aug 2024Scheduling & Rostering

Optimising Care Staff Scheduling with Advanced Software Solutions

Why Traditional Scheduling Methods Fall Short in Modern Care Settings :

Traditionally, care staff scheduling has been a notoriously manual and complicated process for administration staff to complete.

There is no such thing as a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach for service users and carers alike and the unpredictability of the care industry’s day-to-day activities means it can be difficult to plan for all eventualities.

To ensure a high standard of care and operational efficiency are achieved and maintained at all times, administrative staff have begun to adopt a more proactive approach to employee scheduling through leveraging advanced scheduling solutions.

Advanced care staff scheduling software solutions allow for care staff to proactively plan ahead and enable real-time scheduling changes to be made, with all stakeholders being notified as soon as a change is made.

By moving away from a reactive approach to care employee scheduling, and towards a more proactive scheduling approach, care organisations can significantly reduce their administrative burden, allowing carers to focus on what they do best, getting the right care, to the right person, at the right time.

The Importance of Efficient Staff Scheduling:

One of the biggest obstacles in effective care scheduling is ensuring that the service users receive the highest quality of care that is tailored to their individual needs.

By ensuring that the carer has the required training or skills for the service user’s individual needs and verifying that there are no gaps or missed calls, administrative staff can ensure that clients receive the right care at the right time.

Additionally, regularly scheduling a client with the same team of care providers, can encourage them to engage with their care in a meaningful way as it builds a good rapport and trust between all stakeholders involved, empowering them to take on a more active role in their health-related decision-making process.

This familiarity can also help to minimise the stress clients may feel when using the service, further enticing them to interact in a meaningful way with their care.

As the number of service users increase, efficient staff scheduling becomes one of the most critical aspects of care coordination. Once the number of service users hits a certain size, it becomes increasingly difficult for care staff to effectively retain all the necessary client information, resulting in gaps in care provision.

Recognising the challenge this brings, care providers have gradually begun to shift towards using more advanced software solutions to manage their staff scheduling.

One of the added benefits of the right software for care organisations is that all carer and service users’ information is stored centrally and can be accessed at any time during the scheduling process.

As a result, care providers are better able to allocate their resources, scheduling carers with the client they are best suited to, ultimately improving care outcomes.

Challenges in Traditional Scheduling Methods:

One of the biggest challenges of using traditional or paper-based scheduling methods for care employee scheduling is the significant time investment that is required to plan, develop, and distribute each carers weekly schedule. Whilst it may be feasible for some smaller care providers to effectively use a paper schedule, for the vast majority, traditional scheduling methods are too time consuming to be considered a sustainable long-term approach to their scheduling.

Digital schedules allow slight changes to be made quickly and communicated to all staff and service users at the click of a button.

For example, if a carer calls in sick, traditionally, management will have to find suitable coverage, edit the schedule and re-distribute it amongst carers with little to no buffer time, whereas using advanced software solutions for your care staff scheduling allows for instant scheduling changes to be made with all key stakeholders to be instantly notified of any changes to their schedules. “We really like that the system provides a comprehensive view of both carers and clients. With the systems capability for immediate updates and managerial oversight, operations have become more efficient and accurate. This transition has minimised delays and enhanced the overall quality of care delivered to clients.” – David Wallace, Director of Strategy and Operations, Hibernia.

Additionally paper-based schedules often mean that client information is printed out, which can be costly if there needs to be multiple revisions to the schedule. Worse still, it can leave you open to potential data breaches if the paper schedules are lost, misplaced or stolen.

Moreover, as the client information is not stored centrally, rather on spreadsheets or in folders, it greatly increases the likelihood of vital information regarding a client’s health being lost in one person’s mind, which brings its own set of problems if said carer falls ill or ceases employment.

Key Features of Advanced Scheduling Software:

To reduce the gaps in care provision brought about by paper-based scheduling methods, advanced scheduling software should allow care coordinators to create templated schedules which can then be automated to create efficient and error-free schedules for staff.

As these schedules can be templated and subsequently automated, it reduces the administrative burden on care staff by speeding up the scheduling process.

To facilitate this, scheduling software should come with drag-and-drop wallchart functionality, that provides an overview of each carers schedule, which allows for coordinators to make real-time changes, with any changes communicated out to all stakeholders as soon as a change is made.

Furthermore, apart from instantly notifying all stakeholders of any changes, coordinators can then update the schedule in the carer’s app or email the revised schedules to all staff, resulting in greater staff satisfaction as they no longer have to manually email each affected carer, rather they just make the required changes, knowing everyone will be automatically notified.

“Having access to something like the wall chart for example, is a great help. If someone calls in sick, it allows us to check what visits they had for that day and allocate them to others quickly and easily. It’s just a case of dragging and dropping and that makes a big difference.” – Carly Trevett, Registered Manager, Agincare.

The emergence of AI and machine learning in care industry, specifically within the care management software ecosystem, has further opened the door for new advanced functionality to be developed, such as providing carers with a summary of all the comments in a client’s care plan, run-route optimisation, and time-route optimisation.

Incorporating AI and machine learning into care scheduling can help streamline operations and reduce the overall administrative burden on staff by generating a list of suitable carers that can cover a shift, which administrative staff can then use to assign coverage.

Additional Benefits of Implementing Scheduling Software:

Along with all of the above, you want your software to also enable care coordinators to further streamline their scheduling by using pre-defined tags when assigning staff shifts.

This practice should provide a percentage match between carers and service users, empowering coordinators to match service users with the most suitable caregiver, enhancing the quality of care delivered.

Additionally, coordinators have the ability to add care notes and task lists to carers schedules, prompting them to perform and record key care components for effective care delivery, ensuring that they have a clear audit trail for care provision and regulatory compliance.

This audit trail can be used to further inform the development of service-user’s care plans and streamlines your preparations for CQC/HIQA inspections.

Moreover, implementing software to manage your scheduling enables coordinators to ensure that there are always enough qualified staff readily available to provide high quality, personalised care.

As a result, care staff are less likely to experience burnout during their day-to-day work as shifts are distributed fairly amongst staff, ensuring that no individual carer is being overworked, simultaneously increasing the quality of care provided and levels of staff satisfaction.

The Next Steps in Steps in Care Scheduling and Embracing Technology for a Brighter Future:

Due to the constant growth and the unpredictable nature of the care industry, traditional/paper-based scheduling methods have become increasingly non-viable due to their lack of flexibility and the unrealistic time investment required by administrative staff.

Moreover, as the number of service users increases, maintaining efficient staff scheduling becomes critical in providing high quality personalised care that is tailored to individual users’ needs, whilst also making carers more efficient in their care delivery.

As a result, care providers are moving away from more traditional and reactive methods of scheduling, towards more contemporary, proactive means of care staff scheduling, which has led to the emergence of advanced care management systems, just like ours.

The increased requirement for proactive scheduling, increased staff efficiency and personalised care provisions has led to us working on some cutting-edge technological enhancements and AI tools such as:

  • Route optimisation for service delivery to provide an optimal schedule based on the carer’s current postcode, ensuring staff efficiency whilst continuing to service user’s preferences, and
  • Automatically assigning leave cover by identifying the most suitable worker for the client based on coordination data and service delivery history.

Ready to optimise your staff scheduling? Book a demo with OneTouch Health today to see how you can streamline your staff scheduling.

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