FEATURE
Organisations are obviously aware of the benefits of effective mobile working, but haven’t been able to employ the correct strategy to make it work for them.
Some authorities have been using extra agency staff in a bid to plug the holes, but this is not sustainable economically given recent budget cuts. In addition, it does not provide any form of consistency between the social worker and the client.
The majority of social care staff (77%) surveyed believe mobile working will have an important role to play in the future with supporting these changes, but not the way they are currently doing it.
No Quick Drying Glue The reality is that there is not one “quick fix” to solve everything all at once, but something that can have a positive impact on service delivery is the effective utilisation of mobile working. By using a proven authentic mobile working strategy, social workers can save one to two hours per day.
Through better use of the right technology, this provides significant increases in the existing workforce capacity, allowing staff to spend more time delivering services and better cope with their caseloads, resulting in
better staff morale – and importantly, enhanced client care.
Not only do social workers have limited time to spend with clients, they may be going into situations without the latest insight into a case. Advanced mobile productivity tools, providing solutions for creating, processing and accessing digitised files and administration on mobile devices, means they have the latest information at their fingertips. They can also update case notes while fresh in their minds, instead of having to wait until they go back to their desks.
The Way Forward The challenge many organisations find is that the needs of social workers are diverse, from adult care and child protection to domiciliary services, each has its own processes. Many believe it is essential to have a customised application for each group, which immediately brings up red flags on cost.
In reality, however, each service solution can have the same technology foundation, user look and feel and interface. The only difference is that it pulls together, correlates and manages the data for each service. The user simply accesses the data and fills in the form they require, the software does the rest.
By taking this approach, the vision of mobile working within social care teams can be spun off into other parts of the organisation, using the same core platform. Applications and processes can be developed and configured for each new user group at minimal incremental cost.
“Shockingly, 59% of social workers are spending less than three hours of an eight hour day with clients as they struggle to keep on top of office based paperwork, according to a report commissioned by TotalMobile.”
The user-facing part of the application needs to be intuitive and designed to operate optimally on the user’s mobile device, so if they are using an iPad it will look like an iPad app. This means the learning curve is relatively shallow and different training does not have to be given to each of the sectors. It also means that users will quickly adopt the technology, making the transition easier. User acceptance (i.e. using the technology in their daily working routine) is key to the success of any mobile working strategy.
As service demands continue to grow, radical changes in work processes within the field of social care need to be put in place, and the success of these will hinge on a properly thought out mobile working strategy. With the right platform in place, organisations will find it easier to securely share data and provide a joined-up proposition that benefits the social workers and enhances the care of their clients.
www.totalmobile.co.uk - 22 -
www.tomorrowscare.co.uk
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