Surge of interest among community healthcare providers in mobile working solutions to empower district nurses and other care workers in the field
Three more regional healthcare providers in the UK have embraced the TotalMobile solution for their frontline care providers, taking the total installed base to 15 – and at least a dozen more are in advanced talks to roll out the solution
TotalMobile’s no-fuss mobile working solution has struck a chord in the UK healthcare sector, attracting a surge of interest among community healthcare providers that want to empower district nurses, occupational therapists and other medical specialists to make better use of the time they spend with patients at home, at work or in local clinics.
TotalMobile, which turned its attention to the health sector two years ago after phenomenal success with its solution in local government and social services, has signed a series of major healthcare clients this year, taking its total installed base in the UK health sector to 12 – and counting. The latest three customers are now live or are about to go live with the software, and the company is in advanced talks with at least a dozen more UK healthcare providers. Three healthcare organisations in the Netherlands also use the software.
The new customers, who will be named in the coming weeks, follow in the footsteps of Bristol Community Health, Virgin Care and seven other UK healthcare providers which have now adopted the TotalMobile’s solution. Benefits being experienced by these organisations include improvements to patient care as well as staff satisfaction, thanks to the no-nonsense, user-centric productivity tool that works on any mobile device.
TotalMobile allows frontline healthcare practitioners to access case notes and complete assessments directly on their chosen mobile device while with a patient – even if there is no mobile connection. Before setting out on a day’s visits, the care worker can quickly and securely draw down everything they need for the day onto their device – all of the relevant patient history, diary information and forms for completion – which they can go through while with the client. TotalMobile automatically synchronises everything in the background. If a connection is available, this will happen in real time.
Explaining the appeal of the simple yet highly effective solution, Ronnie Geddis, Group Sales & Marketing Director at TotalMobile says, “Community healthcare workers often find themselves under great time pressure, and the more they have to make time for admin during their working day, the less time they have to spend with patients.
“Previously, district nurses, occupational therapists and other community healthcare specialists had to go back to the office to update their records, or could be found outside a patient’s home or in a supermarket car park trying to update their records before their next appointment, or taking the work home with them at the end of the day. Where they had a laptop, this tended to be useless without a connection – or if the connection dropped, they would lose everything.
“The Total Mobile solution is different. It continues to work fully offline, for those occasions where there is no connectivity, or connectivity is lost. This lets the worker do everything they need to, without having to worry whether they have a live connection or not. And, because it can be used on all of the main mobile devices, including iPads or Samsung Galaxy tablets, the care provider can share the screen readily with the patient – for example, to go through a form. There’s no more waiting endlessly for a laptop to boot up, or the physical barrier created by an upright screen between the care provider and the patient which can interrupt face-to-face time.”
As well as being more convenient than other more ‘clunky’ mobile solutions, TotalMobile’s support for offline working is much more secure and shields the user from the technology, Geddis adds. “It’s a relatively simple app that’s very intuitive to use. It brings up only what the user needs to see for that particular patient, and there’s no need to repeatedly enter their personal details on each page. Rather, the care provider can get straight to the heart of what needs to be done and spend more time focusing on the individual patient.”
Of the new contracts TotalMobile has won recently, the organisations’ reasons for wanting the solution have varied. Says Geddis, “In some cases the priority is that health workers can spend longer with each patient. Others want to free up more of their carers’ time to see more people, and feel our solution is equivalent to giving them many more nursing staff. ”
“The advantage for the frontline staff is that they are no longer burdened with paperwork or after-hours time on their laptop – because everything is completed during the appointment. There is also greater job satisfaction because they are providing a better experience for patients – even down to the small things, such as providing reassurance that follow-up tasks and referrals won’t be neglected because the patient has seen the requests logged in front of them.”
