Healthcare Management System

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Healthcare Management System Case Study Issue CareforIT was approached by an expanding healthcare business. Their existing management system was unable to cope with the increasing workload and was becoming a barrier to continued growth. Our Solution CareforIT designed an application to automate all back-office functions and allow carers to interact with the live system while working remotely. This reduced administrative costs, and radically improved the flow and accessibility of business-critical information. The time saved allowed staff to focus on improving customer service and growing the business rather than routine administration.

Healthcare Management System Case Study

The System Brief

The application needed to be accessed by three distinct user types:

i. type of appointment

i. Back-office staff

iii. carer qualifications required

ii. Carers

iv. mandatory training completed by carer

iii. Service-Users Access to the system had to be via a secure online portal. Users needed specified and controlled access rights so they could perform their work without compromising security. For example, service-users should only be able to access their own profile and online diary. Improving the efficiency of the scheduling process was a priority. Scheduling was defined as assigning carers to serviceuser appointments, taking into account the following parameters:

The Specification

A Rapid Application Development (RAD) Model was employed to develop each element, which was loaded on our test servers on completion. The client could then monitor progress and provide continuous feedback to our development team. The elements where defined and prioritised as follows:

Running concurrently with the development of each stage, our designers worked on the look and feel of the Graphical User Interface (GUI). The GUI de- sign is intuitive and simple for users who might not be experienced IT users.

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ii. skill-set required of carer

v. legal requirements met i.e. CRB, Pre-Employment Checks vi. location vii. carer availability The application also had to maintain a historical record of appointments including the date, time, attending out-worker and carer notes.

• Carer profiles - Must have • Service-user profiles - Must have • Online calendar and scheduler - Must have • Administrator content management Should have • Appointment Mapping - Should have • Reports - Could haves • Messaging system - Won’t haves

Healthcare Management System Case Study

Phase 1 Carer Profiles

Carer profiles can be searched for, created, updated and deleted by administrators. They can be edited by the carer. Specified sections of the profiles can be viewed by the serviceusers.

history, information logs (administrator notes), employment history (job title, pay rate, start date etc), contact details (next of kin, emergency etc) and availability (see screen shot on previous page).

The profiles contain tabs for: personal details, address information, training and qualification,

Phase 2: Service-user Profiles

Service-user profiles can be searched for, created, updated and deleted by administrators. Profiles can be viewed and sections, such as the logs, can be updated by carers attending an appointment. Some sections can be viewed and updated by the service-user. The profile GUI contains tabs for: personal

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details, property information (address, access and Google map), care details (the specific care plan for the service-user), information logs, provisioning information (payee, contract length etc), contact details (next of kin, doctor etc) and schedule. A warning can also be displayed to carers and administrators. An example of the service- user profile is shown below:

Healthcare Management System Case Study

Phase 3: Online Calendar and Scheduler

The scheduler automates as much of the scheduling process as possible. The online calendar provides administrators with two views: i. service-user view, ii. carer view (illustrated below). The online calendar provides administrators with an up to the minute display. Existing bookings are shown in blue. These are linked to the service-user profile schedule tab. The schedule tab allows service-users to request appointments and to view their appointments for the next two weeks. Schedule conflicts (a double booking or an invalid booking) are highlighted in red. A colour scheme is used to highlight other absences. Administrators can create appointments and assign carers. The system will only allow

Phase 4: Administrator Content Management

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The administrator content management system allows administrators to add additional parameters to profiles. For example they are able to add a new appointment type or add new training course details.

suitably qualified, in-date and available carers to be assigned to appointments. Regular appointments can be created for service-users which will automatically ‘rollover’ week by week. Administrators can also assign carers to training courses, holidays and review periods. The calendar is linked to the carer profile to update training and availability tabs automatically. Reminders are sent to administrators and carers when training courses or legally required checks are about to expire. The availability tab allows carers to update and review their appointments, training courses and absences for the next two weeks.

Healthcare Management System Case Study

Phase 5: Appointment Mapping

The Google Maps API integration provides carers with location maps for their appointments. These are displayed on the appointment overview page, linked from the carer schedule tab, and also on the serviceuser property tab. GPS - enabled smart phones allow the application to get live carer location information and generate directions to their next appointment.

Phase 6: Reporting

Administrators can produce a series of weekly and monthly reports. These reports can be filtered by date range or by individuals. They cover billing, training, absences and scheduling. Once generated, reports are output in PDF format.

Summary

By working closely with our client to understand their business, CareforIT produced a fully integrated management application. While sophisticated and powerful, the application is simple and intuitive to the end user.

The smart phones give carers full access to the application while on the road, so they can update appointment notes, check serviceuser histories and/or warnings and ‘check-in’ and ‘check-out’ of appointments (providing administrators with accurate up to the minute billing information).

The client has embraced the opportunities presented by new technologies to automate significant administrative tasks and free up back-office capacity. By exploiting those technologies to their fullest, CareforIT developed a modern Web 2.0 application which maintains security without compromising usability.

Contact

T. 08455 44 23 11 care-for-it.com