Ward of a care homeCustom software · Health and care
Under each figure it says where it comes from: they're conservative estimates based on average volumes for the period.
A care home is organised by floor, and each floor is a ward with its own ward manager. They're the one who builds the ward's shift plan every month, for a ward that's open day and night, every day of the year. Every month it took two weeks to make it work.
There was a lot to juggle. Holidays, training, requested days off, the shifts each person would have liked. And on top of that, two levels of rules: the management's, the same for the whole home, and the ones each ward manager has set for their own floor. Move one person to fill a gap and another one opens up three days later.
A generic program is of little use here, because the rules are those of that home and that ward, and the plan has to respect all of them at once. It needed a tool built around them.
Four steps, in the order the software grew: first the home, then the ward, then each month's work.
The software was first built on the management's rules, the ones that apply to the whole home regardless of the floor. They're the fixed point: a plan that doesn't respect them can't be used, however neatly it fits together.
Every ward manager organises shifts their own way, with internal rules built around their floor and the people who work there. The system was extended to include them on top of the management's. The generated plan respects both, at the same time.
Whoever prepares the plan keeps the part that needs a person: handling requests. Holidays, training, days off, preferred shifts, and then the last-minute ones, like a day off to be with a child or a swap that needs agreeing. You read them, reply, sometimes phone, and enter them. All of that, counted in full, fits into about twenty minutes a month.
Once the requests are entered, the plan generates itself in about twenty seconds. What used to be two weeks of attempts, reshuffles and rechecks is now a result to read and, if needed, to tweak. The software is ready and has been handed over to the ward manager, who uses it for their plan.
The shift plan has gone from two weeks to twenty minutes a month, and those twenty minutes already include handling requests; the plan is generated in twenty seconds. The time gained belongs to a person who works on the ward and can now spend it on the ward instead of on the boxes.
The software is ready and handed over. The management's rules and the ward manager's are now in the system, and every month the plan respects them all without anyone having to recheck them one by one.
It's ready for the other floors too. The management's foundation already applies to the whole home: another ward manager just needs to enter their own staff and rules to have their plan in twenty seconds.
The same goes outside this home. The engine that generates the plan is the same for everyone; what changes from one facility to another are the rules, the management's and each ward manager's. For another care home, that's where you start: you gather its rules, and the system is built on them.
When the problem is made of rules that only exist in that place, and that change from one ward to the next, a generic program forces you to adapt. One built specifically starts from those rules.
The same areas of work we bring to every company: this engagement needed 2 of them, together.
The thinking behind this case, explained in full on the blog (in Italian).
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