Providing high quality residential care for older people in the Auckland region is the mission of CHT. Its reach extends throughout the upper North Island, encompassing fourteen sites including its head office. Although this work is motivated by the provision of ideal care of the elderly rather than profitability, CHT says this does not equate to not having to make a return.
Managing the CHT would appear to be a huge workload in any circumstance, given a 500+ strong staffing complement, ongoing expansion work in construction of additional rest-home beds, scoping out additional capital purchases, plus a highly regulated compliance regime. “We still have to be concerned about efficiencies and streamlined processes,” CHT says, adding that a return on capital invested is always required. “Occupancy is a key driver of this, which is impacted greatly by having quality facilities and by hiring skilled staff,” he says.
Another efficiency recently made was to install FileVision Health, initially for its smartly structured, scalable document management capacity.
CHT has found that, rolled out site by site, FileVision Health is working to professionalize information handling to a greater extent. It also aids staff by bringing current versions of communications together in one place. “Staff can see that time is saved this way. It’s now simpler and quicker to find a document online, and a lot of information can be automatically archived,” CHT says. “I can see huge benefits from using the software in terms of managing the sheer volume of data we have to deal with. We can pull this from a number of sources, and save it all in the same, central repository, which is fantastic, especially for staff from all sites to be able to retrieve the correct versions of forms quickly.”They are aware that CHT has so far “touched no more than the front end of FileVision Health,” but that it’s a crucial part of CHT’s overall IT strategy to have all types of information well integrated and flowing optimally. The next step is to tailor FileVision Health to automate the signalling of contractual compliance demands, and kick-starting contract renewals and associated workflows to the right staff at the right time.
The first foray into the process of installing and integrating FileVision Health at CHT was for to set up a new directory system for the entire Trust. This they did in order so the 2,400 folders and thousands of files could be transferred and retrieved logically and identically by staff at the different sites. He describes re-designing the paper management system as a “massive task”, but in retrospect, well worth the effort. CHT are now enjoying the reliability the software allows them. What’s good, they say, is “the certainty that when you go to look for certain electronically stored documents, they’ll be there. With our old system, staff might have inadvertently dragged and deleted a folder, or at least have deposited it somewhere hard to find. FileVision Health means we’re not spending any valuable time recovering files.”
With the simultaneous tasks of managing a lot of people, a swag of building facilities, and copious contracts, CHT admits they have one IT system for finance, billing; another for patient management and billing, and another for the payroll. The overarching aim, he says, is to continue increasing the flow of electronic documentation; resulting in the easy integration of these systems. “I think that in the long run, FileVision Health, which seems pretty intuitive and easy to understand, will bring us immense benefits, and integrate much more for us, such as letting us manage all of our supplier contacts from one central source, and have them accessible to staff from everywhere,” CHT says. “It’s streamlining us, making our information systems less cumbersome and more secure.”