We Care Home Health Services is a large independently owned home and community care services provider in Canada, with  50 community locations and 5,000 staff. Nurses, Personal Support Workers and other support staff visit the homes of the sick, frail or elderly and help them with their daily living activities and provide care to those recently released from hospitals.  By nature of their jobs, We Care staff are highly mobile and spend much of their time working independently with their clients. Very few staff  have cell phones so it is not easy to stay in touch with them while they were on a job.  Shifts for staff are usually confirmed  by phone and timesheets are completed by hand, delivered to the local office by fax or in person, and entered into the We Care billing and payroll system manually.  We Care wanted to replace its  phone-driven scheduling, and paper-based time and attendance system.  
We Care CEO John Schram was already using a BlackBerry smartphone, as were many of the head office employees. .  With the BlackBerry solution in place, We Care decided to build on their investment by partnering with  MedShare, a software developer, to develop an application for BlackBerry smartphones to automate their scheduling and time and attendance systems.  The entire process of scheduling client visits, charting the visit and logging time into timesheets is now completed automatically  with the BlackBerry smartphone  virtually eliminating paper work from the process. 
We Care immediately saw a reduction in calls between care coordinators, who schedule visits with the field staff..  Instead of having to make up to 25 calls to a group of care workers to check their availability and wait for a response, the MedShare for BlackBerry application sends out a group email to each persons BlackBerry smartphone. The local We Care office Care Coordinator now also receives confirmation of the staff visit in near-real-time.  As soon as a Personal Support Worker arrives at a clients home, they use the MedShare for BlackBerry application to confirm their arrival.  When they leave, they logg their time which is is automatically sent to the existing point of care system. Another advantage is that support workers can also use the MedShare application to log basic chart information, allowing care givers to provide quality service and determine the best resources to help clients and staff. 

By working with MedShare, a wireless application partner, the company deployed the MedShare for BlackBerry application on several BlackBerry smartphones.  The application helped to confirm care workers shifts, keep track of client information and almost instantly send completed timesheets into the companys existing back-end billing and payroll system. We Care instantly went from being paper-based to a virtual electronic company.  In one business week alone, care coordinators cut the number of calls from 145 to 72 because the Personal Support Workers were now able to accept the shifts on their BlackBerry smartphones.  We Care considered this a huge benefit to staff and clients because they could confirm schedules immediately instead of waiting for hours. We Care also completely eliminated the middle step of having to wait for timesheets to be dropped off and then having someone manually input them into the system.  Confirmation of visits is now immediately recorded via the BlackBerry solution and instead of being days to a week behind, they are now able to keep up with payroll and billing which is important to their business. Personal Support Workers also use the MedShare for BlackBerry application on their BlackBerry smartphones to log basic chart information.  If a client has an incident, which can range from mobility, cognitive or medication troubles, the care giver can log the information into the chart section.  Knowing about the incidents allow We Care staff to provide quality service and theyve seen a real increase in the amount of information being logged since they began using the application.  That information helps We Care determine the best resources needed to help clients and staff.  The new application also provides Personal Support Workers with a piece of mind, because if something happens at a clients  home and they need help they have their BlackBerry smartphone to reach out to their support network.

Yes

Yes

MedShare allowed We Care to automate their time and attendance system. The entire process of scheduling client visits, charting the visit and logging time into timesheets was done, on the spot, during a client visit, with the BlackBerry smartphone. That meant that virtually all
paperwork was eliminated from the process.

By having BlackBerry smartphones, our staff can communicate with each other and with us,
so theyre not as isolated. Many of them love that their client visits almost automatically show up on the BlackBerry smartphones, so they can then schedule their own appointments and life events using the same mobile calendar.
Janna Chindamo, Branch Director, We Care Home Health Services

The MedShare for BlackBerry project is exceptional because it allows We Care support workers to provide a higher quality of care to their clients.  Time previously spent on administrative tasks such as completing timesheets and client care information is now automated on BlackBerry smartphones that is easy to access.

User-friendliness was a critical part of the technology that was selected for this project.  Many support workers were not familiar with technology  in fact many did not use a cell phone and almost none had use of a computer. Any smartphone or mobile application deployed had to be easy to use and unintimidating. MedShare for BlackBerry smartphones completely opened up a whole new world for many of the staff, who have begun using emai for the first time.  We Care was surprised to see how quickly they learned to use the device, even the application with minimal training.

The greatest challenge was overcoming the fear and intimidation of the Personal Support Workers to using technology. Previous to the introduction of the Blackberry smartphones, they used a land-based telephone system to communicate to accept assignments, and a paper -based time and attendance report which they had to hand deliver or fax every week to the office.
 
We overcame the challenge by;
        
    1. Introducing several easy to use functions on the Blackberry, then the MedShare application with 3 hour training sessions in small groups (5-6 staff), the PSWs quickly became comfortable and capable. 
 
    2. Getting the PSWs to carry the Blackberries every day for every call was another challenge which was overcome once they saw the huge advantages it made to their workload.
 
Funding new technology is always a challenge, but we saw the very significant savings to our company, the improvement to the work lives of our staff (including their safety), and the better service we could deliver to our clients if we were successful. We have realized that success.

Exceeded

Organizations similar to We Care can benefit from the success of their deployment.  The MedShare application has provided We Care with a streamlined administration process that improves the efficiency of payroll and billing, removes the need for manual input, and cuts down on all the paper used amongst other advantages.

Many of We Cares personal support users had never used cell phones and the majority had never used computers, but since deploying the We Care application on BlackBerry smartphones, We Care was pleasantly surprised at how quickly their users learned how to use the smartphones and the application with minimal training.