MPFT has recently benefited from upgrading the software package it uses to manage district nurse appointments in the community.

eCommunity is a scheduling solution designed specifically for community care which supports the workforce allocation process, from creating daily schedules all  the  way  through  to  redeploying staff and providing high-level  reporting.  The solution works directly with HealthRoster, allowing for all information inputted in one system to be instantly and accurately updated in the other.

The Trust is now saving on average more than 3 hours a month for each team administrator who would previously have had to manually input rotas on both systems.

The system is automatically updated with all staff competencies and will flag and stop allocations of patients to staff who don’t have the correct skills and experience to treat them. Travel time between patients plus patient acuity and need is also shown, so safe and efficient daily schedules can easily be created and managed.

eCommunity’s mobile app means the district nurses can view their daily schedules and information about their visits as well as update their progress throughout the day, helping staff to focus on delivering high-quality treatment to patients.

“To be able to see where staff are in real time and see how they’re doing with their workload is incredibly useful, as it gives us a full overview and we can see schedules being completed as the day progresses.”  Suzy Keeling, Operational Lead MPFT

The next development will be to roll out a further upgrade which will enable information to be pulled into eCommunity directly from RiO, the Trust’s patient information management system.  This will offer additional time savings and also ensure date is accurate and consistent across systems.

‘It’s been an absolute pleasure as the Project Manager to lead the project as I know eCommunity is making a huge difference and enhancing our ability to care for our patients in the community.’ Trish Nolan, IT Training Lead and Project Manager