From nurses, to personal support workers, to administrators, to dieticians; there are many different roles and responsibilities within a senior care home and each one has been impacted differently by COVID-19. External communication and the methods with which they are delivered have never been more important. We sat down (virtually of course!) with Derek Soares, Director of Information Systems and Decision Support at St. Joseph’s Continuing Care to learn more about how Cliniconex has helped reduce their communications burden.
Can you tell me a bit about St. Joseph’s Continuing Care?
St. Joesph’s Continuing Care Centre is located in Cornwall, Ontario, and operates a long-term care facility with 150 beds and a complex continuing care hospital, predominantly in slow stream rehabilitation, with 58 beds. We provide 24-hour nursing care for more than 200 residents and patients.
How did you manage communication with Resident Families before Cliniconex, and what were the challenges with that system?
Our main reason for implementing Cliniconex was for scheduling annual care conferences and meetings with families. Previously, we were coordinating these with paper-based methods and our staff were calling families to schedule appointments, as we had not adopted PointClickCare’s Resident Event Calendar.
The main challenges with this method were the number of voice mails and messages being left which resulted in a lot of back and forth and playing phone tag to set up and confirm appointments. Even when families had scheduled a meeting, there would be time and room changes which made for a lot of time wasted scheduling and rescheduling meetings.
Why did St. Joseph’s implement Cliniconex?
The loss of time and resources in manually scheduling these appointments was the main reason St. Joseph’s implemented Cliniconex. It offers our staff a very simple method of scheduling meetings with our residents and their families in a consistent way. The regular meeting reminders allows us to message a family about a potential care conference, then remind them three days before and one day before so there is no confusion about the time or place.
Have you had to use the “Urgent” function of the solution for outbreaks, power outages, or severe weather?
We mainly implemented Cliniconex to standardize our process for care conferences, but we thought the urgent function was great in terms of preparedness; to have the outbreak and emergency messages built into the app to be used at a moment’s notice. As part of the implementation, we did create templated messaging that could be used in the future. It also helped us plan for various emergency scenarios.
How was the implementation process? Was it easy to deploy?
The implementation was extremely smooth and the team at Cliniconex was very accommodating; it did not take long at all. Cliniconex was very clear on what was needed from us, so we were prepared when it came to making the transition. We had our messaging ready to go, which was easy to fill in with the team. From start to finish the whole process was quick and easy.
What impacts have you seen now that you’ve been using Cliniconex for some time?
The big win for us right away for us was the consistent approach to the scheduling of our meetings with families. We now have a single method that integrates directly with PointClickCare’s Resident Event Calendar, and with all front-line staff having access to that software they can see the appointment information clearly.
Another win was for the front-line staff to be able to check the “Miscellaneous” section of PointClickCare to quickly confirm that the messages and reminders had gone out. It’s made the outreach process much easier.
What has been the reaction from resident families to Cliniconex? Any feedback?
The feedback from our Resident Families has been positive. It has been fairly quiet, which I think is a good thing! Families appreciate the reminders, without the phone tag – so it’s working well!