CellTrak Mobile Technology Improves Client Care in Vancouver for the Community Home Support Services Association

Jul 6, 2011 5:51:24 AM

One of CellTrak's latest clients, Community Home Support Services Association (CHSSA) supports elderly people who live with physical and/or developmental disabilities in their homes. CHSSA provides a variety of health care services during in-home client visits by their community health workers (CHWs). Traditionally all these visits were recorded on paper along with older technologies, like voicemail, copies and faxes. Making sure that schedule changes and care plan changes were up to date and received by the CHW's became quite a problem for both the administrative and field staff.

Eventually once all the paper was collected from each CHW, a team of workers would "match" paper records to the schedules to make sure all visits and times were met. Then those records would get recorded into the payroll and support systems. This was a time-consuming inefficient way to exchange information and it left room for communication breakdowns and more importantly missed appointments. CHWs would manually update client records following the visits and also spend additional time each week, processing time sheets.

CHSSA along with their partner Procura found that CellTrak running on BlackBerry devices on the Rogers Wireless network had an efficient, secure easy-to-use point of care mobile data solution, that would replace most of their paper and manual processes. The CellTrak service now provides over 400 CHSSA CHWs with the power to send and receive scheduling, care plan and transportation information for each and every client visit 24x7x365. Community health workers now have all their daily information delivered in real time to their BlackBerry®.

The result for CHSSA, is better communications, faster processing time, increased compliance and delivery of better client care. Using mobile technology, CHSSA reduced its paperwork and has seen a measureable improvement in data accuracy and visit compliance. They also know the whereabouts of its community health workers through GPS mapping which helps ensure that the CHWs safely arrive at and depart from all their appointments. CHWs are now more efficient, leaving them more time to focus on better patient care, not paper work.

Paul Dube Executive Director at CHSSA stated "we are pleased with this green, efficient initiative and look forward to a continued partnership to bring further innovative change to the delivery of home health. "

Isabel Sum, Director of Home Support Operations at CHSSA said: "CellTrak, Procura and Rogers worked very closely with us to understand the needs of our organization. The CellTrak/Procura solution not only addressed our needs, but it was also easy to implement. Our employees now spend less time completing administrative tasks and more time caring for our community."

"With each new implementation, we are getting the message that the employees want to be a part of deploying new technology," said Warren Brown, President of Procura. "They see it as a benefit to the quality of their work life. This level of acceptance is in large part due to the efforts of the management and staff at CHSSA."

Michael K. Wons President and CEO of CellTrak Technologies, Inc. commented "Eliminating paper and manual processes and gaining better accountability through point-of-care automation is what we strive for with each of our clients," he continued, "CHSSA is a leading Canadian homecare provider that has proven the ease of use and quick adaptability of CellTrak by the field staff which helps improve overall client care"

About Community Home Support Services Association

CHSSA is a not-for-profit provider of in-home health care services to the elderly and individuals with physical and/or developmental disabilities. CHSSA promotes independent living through client-centered practices that reflect sensitivity, innovation and flexibility. CHSSA employs over 600 community health workers who provide service in over 40 languages to approximately 2,200 clients in Vancouver and Burnaby. www.chssa.com

About Procura

Procura provides a comprehensive and fully integrated software solution for point-of-care, clinical (InterRAI MDS-HC) and back office administration for Regional Health Authorities, and Home Care and Community Care agencies across Canada. Procura provides a Community E-Health Record and enables the management of multiple programs and lines of business. Procura is the software vendor of choice for the home and community care industry in Canada. Over 6,000 users at more than 350 client sites in North America and Australia use Procura to manage over 50,000 employees. Our clients range from small start-ups all the way through to multi-site and franchise organizations. For more information, visit www.goprocura.com.

Topics: CellTrak News

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