Carewatch Wyvern rolls-out Advanced’s electronic call monitoring to improve care quality, transparency

Carewatch Wyvern, part of the Carewatch network, which is a leading national provider of care and support to people in their own homes, has rolled-out electronic call monitoring solution, iConnect, to its 45 care workers. The go live was Saturday 15 September 2012.

Carewatch Wyvern, based in Taunton, is using Advanced Health & Care’s iConnect mobile solution to improve two-way communication with care workers. iConnect is also being used to record real-time arrival and departure times at all 90 of its service users’ homes, improving both care quality and transparency.

Ru Newman, Managing Director of Carewatch Wyvern, says, “We are one of the first home care providers in Somerset to implement electronic call monitoring, putting us a step ahead of the competition.”

“The use of iConnect will improve communication to and from our care workers, ensuring that they are fully aware of the appointments they are attending and the tasks they need to complete in each case. Knowing exactly when they are arriving and leaving service users’ homes will also improve accountability and lone worker safety.”

Advanced’s iConnect delivers real-time task lists and service users data to care workers via their mobile phones and records actual arrival and departure times using near-field communication (NFC) technology. To prove attendance, care workers simply touch in and out at each visit, using their NFC-enabled iConnect mobile devices coupled with radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags fitted within service users’ homes.

The data that is collected from iConnect is fed back to Carewatch’s rostering system (Advanced’s StaffPlan Roster), giving managers a holistic view of workers’ schedules. The iConnect time and attendance data will also be used for billing purposes, ensuring that commissioners are invoiced as accurately as possible.

Newman says, “With iConnect, we’ll instantly know if care workers are running late for appointments and so will be able to inform service users and their families to prevent unnecessary worry. As we have replaced paper-based notes and time sheets with encrypted electronic data, this has improved security. The issues associated with asking service users’ to sign time and attendance sheets have also been removed.”

Newman adds, “By eliminating paper-based administration, this will improve efficiency and allow care workers to spend more quality, face-to-face time with service users.”