2008

Time is always short, but when it involves home carers calling on the frail or elderly, maximising it is important – even life saving.

Thanks to a new Homecare Monitoring system from Crown Computing, supervisors in control centres are being made aware in real time that carers are arriving on time at each of their planned visits. The real time data is captured using a mobile phone issued to each carer, and a contact free chip card or tag located at the service user address.

Should a carer be late for a time critical visit, Crown’s system will generate an alert to inform the supervisor who can then investigate and put a contingency plan in place if needed.

The technology used is Near Field Communication – a form of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) – where the mobile phone is used to scan the contact free chipcard (which has a unique ID) thus pinpointing the location of the carer at a specific time.

“At each visit the carer’s mobile phone reads the client’s card or tag using a simple “swipe” motion to send the start and end time of each visit back to the system database in real-time,” said Mike Hawkesford, Managing Director, Crown Computing.

“This has a number of advantages for the service provider; there is confirmation in real time that the person being cared for is receiving the care they have contracted to provide and from a health and safety perspective the system is providing up to date information about the whereabouts of each carer.”

“In addition any unexpected staff changes or delays can be identified quickly, better managed and communicated to the client – whilst the use of the mobile phone to ‘register’ the carer’s time is less intrusive than existing methods involving dialling a number from the client’s land line telephone.”

The management system is suitable for use by Local Authority internal homecare teams and for external providers contracted by Local Authorities.

At the other end of the process, data captured from the system can also be used to trigger payments to staff members and invoices to the Local Authorities, as well as costs to be correctly allocated and recharges appropriately attributed, eliminating the need for the carer to fill in manual timesheets - saving time and reducing errors.

The uses for this technology are potentially widespread and it lends itself particularly to the Security Guarding and Field Maintenance sectors, where being able to confirm in real time that their operatives have visited specific locations at a specific time is an important part of their service.