Hospice Provider Increases Productivity and Improves Patient Care with BlackBerry Solution and CellTrak

Jul 12, 2011 5:51:23 AM

Schaumburg, IL (July 12, 2011) – CellTrak announced today that customer Hospice of Baton Rouge, a nonprofit organization providing medical care and grief counseling to people in the final stages of a terminal illness, has saved time, reduced mileage expenses and increased staff productivity from using CellTrak along with the BlackBerry® solution.

Of the hospice’s 60 staff, half are nurses, chaplains, social workers and certified nurse’s assistants (CNAs) who care for patients in their homes within a 50 mile radius of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. This interdisciplinary healthcare team serves approximately 800 patients and their families per year.

Hospice of Baton Rouge healthcare providers drive to each patient’s home to provide onsite nursing care and spiritual counseling. During a two-week period, field staff could travel as many as 2,000 miles to treat their patients. And, although mileage and expenses for the trips are reimbursed by the hospice, there was no way for administrative staff to accurately verify the distances.

“Staff would wait until the payroll due date to enter all their time and mileage,” said Julia Aycock, the Onsite IT Coordinator at the Hospice for Baton Rouge. “They struggled to remember the precise time and distance and it took nearly a full day to enter two weeks’ worth of information.”

In addition to time and mileage with the healthcare industry shifting towards electronic records, the hospice’s paper records no longer fit within that model. Manually entering payroll, mileage and medical data into a computer after the fact was inefficient and led to errors.

The Hospice of Baton Rouge partnered with CellTrak™ Technologies, Inc. (CellTrak), developers of mobile software designed to automate workflow and improve compliance in home and hospice healthcare settings. CellTrak suggested that the hospice deploy the BlackBerry solution to help solve its challenges. The BlackBerry solution’s built-in security features, combined with the mobile application, would act as a valuable and effective solution.

“With the BlackBerry solution and CellTrak, we now have a complete electronic visit record that matches the care plan,” said Aycock. “That means that we’re providing better care for our patients and we’re doing it in a secure and responsible way.”

All 30 field staff now use the BlackBerry solution to track their time and mileage. Additionally, the CNAs use it to follow a plan of care designed by the medical director.

“After deploying the BlackBerry solution and CellTrak, we started to see a return on our investment right away,” said Julia Aycock, the Onsite IT Coordinator at the Hospice for Baton Rouge. “During the first quarter, we believe we saved approximately $8,000 on mileage alone.”

Key benefits that the Hospice of Baton Rouge has realized since deploying the BlackBerry solution and CellTrak include:

  • Reduction of mileage expenses
  • Increased productivity of field and office staff
  • Improved compliance with medical plan of care
  • Faster responses in medical emergencies

For more details of the Hospice of Baton Rogue’s use of the BlackBerry solution and CellTrak please see the BlackBerry Customer Success Story at here

About Hospice of Baton Rouge

Hospice of Baton Rouge has been meeting the end-of-life care needs of the Greater Baton Rouge Metropolitan area since 1984. We are the only non-profit, United Way, Medicare & Medicaid certified hospice provider in this area. We provide care to anyone regardless of the financial resources. Hospice or palliative care is comfort care. Our goal is to address the physical, psychosocial and spiritual needs of individuals who are in the final stages of life.

Services are provided by Hospice of Baton Rouge in the patient’s home, assisted living facilities, nursing homes and group homes. Our interdisciplinary team of health-care professionals and trained volunteers provides hospice care. For more information please visit: www.hospicebr.org.

Topics: CellTrak News

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