AlayaCare Launches Schedule and Route Optimization Features to Enable More Home Care Visits

Agencies can leverage a new algorithm to minimize home care worker travel time

Toronto, ON, November 9th, 2017 — AlayaCare, a global leader in home and community care software, announces the release of several features for home care agency coordinators and schedulers.

Agencies will benefit from schedule and route optimization capabilities, a new applicant tracking system and vacant shift offers via mobile devices. These features reduce coordination, transit time and stress for front line home care workers, which enables more focus on client care.

These new features will better equip agencies to address the number one challenge that all home and community care providers face – care worker shortage. AlayaCare’s CEO, Adrian Schauer, says: “Our home care agency partners need solutions to allow them to deliver more care in the community with their existing resources. Our optimization algorithm allows them to create more efficient schedules and routes.

On average we are finding up to 30 per cent reduction in travel time. This capability has the potential to be transformative for the home care sector in a time where demand is outstripping supply.”

“Currently home care workers can travel up to 4 hours to complete 8 hours of actual care delivery,” says VHA Home HealthCare’s (VHA) Director of IT, Drew Wesley, whose agency partnered with AlayaCare to develop version 1 of the feature.

“This isn’t ideal for home care workers, their clients or for VHA. The schedule and route optimization feature will reduce travel gaps and also makes life a lot easier for our service coordinators. Ultimately it means a better experience for clients receiving care.”  

“The home care industry presents a particularly challenging optimization problem given some visits are time specific, while other clients require home care workers with specific skills and training. Furthermore, the government asks home care companies to schedule services with a high degree of continuity (have the same home care worker deliver services to the same clients),” adds AlayaCare’s academic Professor Louis-Martin Rousseau, Canada Research Chair in Healthcare Analytics and Logistics at Polytechnique Montréal (hanalog.ca).

Also released to AlayaCare customers is the applicant tracking feature that streamlines the job application process for in-demand care worker positions. Job applicants apply online, which directly interfaces to the human resource module of AlayaCare.

Rounding out this month’s release is Visit Offers functionality that informs employees of vacant visits/shifts via mobile messaging, allowing them to efficiently pick up extra shifts.

This latest feature builds on AlayaCare’s existing strengths as a single, integrated solution for all home and community care functions. AlayaCare provides organizations with an all in one back office, telehealth, electronic health record, mobile and employee record solution.

About AlayaCare

AlayaCare is a provider of revolutionary cloud-based home health care software. With an end-to-end solution spanning home health documentation, adl tracking, drag and drop scheduling, client and family portals, remote patient monitoring, a home care app, and an electronic visit verification system, we offer a platform for agencies to propel towards innovation and home care of the future. 

About VHA

Since 1925 VHA Home HealthCare (VHA) — a not-for-profit organization — has provided compassionate home care — at home, in long-term care facilities or in hospitals. From nursing to personal support to homemaking programs and rehabilitation services, VHA supports Ontarians to live as independently as possible through the dedicated service of more than 2,500 professionals. VHA proudly meets national standards of excellence in health care set out by Accreditation Canada with exemplary standing and is a founding member agency of United Way Toronto.