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How do you handle repetitive tasks in home-based care? 5 tips to reduce time on admin tasks and focus more on your clients

5-Ways-of-Reducing-Repetitive-Tasks-through-home-care-software

57% of home care agencies reported that they spend up to 3 hours a day on administrative tasks such as data entry, tracking patient records, etc., according to a survey conducted by Home Health Care News. In addition, home-based care providers who work in rural areas often must travel long distances to get to their clients, leading to added time spent on repetitive administrative tasks related to travel. 

Organizations struggle to keep up with repetitive tasks and inefficiencies that can be costly regarding time and resources.  To prevent these mundane tasks from slowing down operations and giving time back to providing quality care to clients, here are 5 tips that can help reduce repetitive tasks for your home care and/or home health business: 

1. Automating staff scheduling and management 

Automation tools within a home-based care software platform are a great way organizations can improve their operations and workflows. It can free up valuable time and resources by reducing manual tasks that can take up daily hours.

With automation tools enabled by home care software, like AlayaCare, agencies can reduce errors made by performing tasks manually and improve accuracy, ensuring compliance with regulations and policies. It also helps allocate caregivers and staff more efficiently by matching their skills and availability with client needs, reducing the need for any last-minute visit changes and cancellations.   

By providing real-time updates and alerts to caregivers and clients without needing repetitive phone calls or emails, automating scheduling can improve communication. Automation additionally increases productivity by reducing mundane manual administrative tasks, allowing staff to focus on client care, and other work priorities.

“In the past, we had to drive an hour and a half to get to the client’s home, to review the paper chart, to figure out what was going on and what’s our next step. So, in terms of client outcomes, we may not even need to make that drive. We may be able to talk quickly through whatever issue is over the phone once we have an understanding of what their teaching has been, and where their situation stands. In terms of client success, that has been extremely helpful.”

– Dylaina Wood, Director of Business Development & Project Management, Access Health 

Consider this!

Successful implementation of these strategies can be seen in the case of Helping Hands Orillia, a community and social support service in Canada. They used AlayaCare Cloud’s Connector to automate appointment reminders which saved 50 hours of manual labor. 

Save time on tasks

Overall, agencies can expect better employee satisfaction because it can provide better transparency and flexibility in scheduling, and reducing stress and unpredictability from manual scheduling.  

4 ways tech can optimize daily home care scheduling and routes

tech solutions to daily schedules and routes

2. Empower caregivers and nurses with mobile apps for better task management 

Almost everyone has a phone on their person, including caregivers. Having mobile access to client information can help caregivers stay up to date with real-time information and input any new information regarding their visit right into their mobile device.  

Innovative home-based care systems and software solutions have revolutionized how care workers manage their tasks. To ensure the highest quality of care, providers must equip their caregivers with the necessary tools to excel.  These advanced technologies give care workers access to real-time information, enabling them to be better informed and prepared for client visits. 

For example, a well-designed mobile app can revolutionize how caregivers manage their time and tasks. GPS-based mobile care management systems can streamline client care, while electronic visit verification and record-keeping eliminate hours of manual work. 

For example, a well-designed mobile app can revolutionize how caregivers manage their time and tasks. GPS-based mobile care management systems can streamline client care, while electronic visit verification and record-keeping eliminate hours of manual work. 

EVV

Technology presents everything a caregiver needs to know about each client, including medical information and notes on potential issues before an appointment. Real-time communication between caregivers and office staff also ensures accurate, fast data collection and reporting —transparency that helps build trust between caregivers and their employers. 

Caregivers can manage their schedules, track their hours worked, and submit timecards more efficiently while on the go. This also reduces the administrative burden on the home care agency and improves accuracy since caregivers can access patient information such as care plans, medication lists, and medical history. 

By providing caregivers with greater flexibility, control, and support in their work, a caregiver mobile app can reduce stress and burnout, ultimately improving employee retention. 

Home care agencies can reduce many manual, repetitive tasks, like paper documentation, emails, calls, and more, by having the necessary tools at their caregivers’ fingertips.  

See how Avivo’s staff member Mitzi used AlayaCare’s mobile app to reduce manual tasks and inefficiencies: 

3. Simplified electronic billing and invoicing

Manual billing and invoicing can be one of the biggest pain points, especially because they can consist of many repetitive tasks taking up valuable time and increasing costs for home care agencies. By investing in home care software that provides billing and invoicing tools, an agency can take the time saved to focus on more important tasks and client care.  

With electronic billing and invoicing, agencies can ensure accuracy and reduce human errors, which will ultimately improve compliance with regulations and help your agency get paid faster.  Overall, speeding up the payment process and reducing the time between service delivery and payment receipt can improve the agency’s cash flow. 

Having the ability to streamline financial reporting with home care software reporting tools can help your agency track revenue, expenses, and other metrics providing better visibility and control over your financials.  

Boost your RCM: 4 ways home care software can improve billing and payroll

RCM

Leverage electronic billing and invoicing to help your home care agency improve efficiency, reduce costs, and improve financial performance.  

How Privatus Care Solutions saved 10+ accounting hours monthly: 

4. Electronic charting and documentation

If you’re sensing a theme here, automation within home care software solutions can provide home care agencies with many solutions to costly and time-consuming repetitive tasks. One of the most complained about repetitive tasks by care providers is documentation.  

With electronic charting and documentation within home care software, all the information caregivers need is in one place. By minimizing data entry and improving report generation with automation, we can increase the accuracy of clinical document efficiency. With up-to-date and accurate information, caregivers can provide more personalized care, improving client safety, and thus enhancing client care.  

 Home care agencies can expect better data analysis with electronic charting and documentation since caregivers and back-office staff can collect, store, and analyze client data enabling the agency to identify trends, measure outcomes, and improve client care.  

Acclaim Health was able to reap the benefits of reducing paperwork with a home care software system, AlayaCare Cloud. They initially used 48K of paper per month. They reduced it by 90% of 4800 sheets of paper per month since going digital.

Acclaim Health was able to reduce 90% of their paper processes with software.

5. Analytics and reporting

The aim of continuous improvement is operational excellence — establishing a working method that consistently delivers improvements in care quality and safety.

A data-driven approach to continuous improvement can help home-based care providers stay ahead of the competition by constantly innovating and improving their offerings. Leveraging data allows providers to become more efficient, make better decisions, and develop their human resources.

Utilizing key metrics and reports helps to monitor the performance of the provider and aids in decision-making. Data on caregiver utilization, client satisfaction, and client outcomes can provide valuable insights into areas that need improvement.

Consider this!

Bien Chez Soi is a successful home care franchise founded in 2008. This Canadian provider now counts over 40 locations throughout the province of Quebec. Bien Chez Soi has spent the past five years capturing the right data and using it to improve services, forecasts, trends, and scale.  

 “The ability to create custom reports to analyze the issues you want to prioritize is important. Find a software system that easily enables you to build these reports.”  

Ashley McLellan, VP of Operations, Bien Chez Soi

Here is some advice on the effective use of data, courtesy of Ashley McLellan, VP of Operations: 

  • Contract sign rates can be quite valuable in quantifying how long it takes for a new client to translate into a closed deal, creating percentages over time. From here, you can create closing rates, which are great for forecasting. If one location/franchise takes ten days to close a contract and has a closing rate of 25%, you can start to see what percentage of leads will get closed. Then, you can consider how many employees you’ll need to recruit to service any growing needs.  
  • The month-over-month or year-over-year numbers can reveal stories across departments, as well as overall business growth. You invested X% in marketing — has that translated into more sales in the months afterward? Are employee satisfaction rates changing? How do they compare to churn rates? Down the list, you can track growth over time on any metric you collect. 

Read more about the key learnings around using data from Ashley McLellan in our guide, how to make the most of your home-based care data.

Home care software solutions can reduce repetitive tasks by automating various time-consuming and costly administrative and care-related processes, such as staff scheduling, caregiver on-site processes, billing and invoicing, electronic charting and documentation, and analytics and reporting. Overall, home care software can help home care agencies work more efficiently and effectively, improving the quality of care provided to clients. 

4 ways high impact automation will future-proof your home care agency

In this guide you can learn about:

  • Industry challenges and keeping up with demand
  • Eliminating the biggest problem: eradicate repetitive tasks
  • Tools and software solutions available to combat the pain-points and enable efficiency
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