How Bien Chez Soi powered efficiency with AlayaCare’s Visit Optimizer

The Bottom Line

Bien Chez Soi adopted AlayaCare’s Visit Optimizer tool to modernize its scheduling and operational processes. Visit Optimizer addressed critical inefficiencies by providing advanced scheduling capabilities, real-time insights into caregiver availability, and reducing the burden of manual administrative tasks. 

As a result of their partnership with AlayaCare, Bien Chez Soi achieved: 

• 10% increase in visit volume within the first 96 days of implementation. 
• 42% reduction in vacant visits (visits with unassigned caregivers).
• 68% improvement in scheduling efficiency, reducing the workload of Bien Chez Soi’s scheduler from 84 hours a week to 30 hours.
• 25% increase in average caregiver hours per workday. 
• 6% increase in continuity of care for clients requiring short service hours. 

The Company

Bien Chez Soi is a leader in Quebec’s network of home care services, providing personalized support ranging from childcare to care for individuals with reduced autonomy. Founded in 2008 to address the lack of adequate homecare services in the region, the organization has grown to serve over 5,000 families through a network of over 50 communities served and 1,500 “Bienveillants” (personal support workers).  

Bien Chez Soi’s mission is rooted in empowering individuals to thrive in the comfort of their own homes, delivering care with kindness and compassion. The organization is strongly committed to fostering long-term relationships between caregivers and clients, ensuring consistency and trust in every interaction.

The Opportunities

Bien Chez Soi had multiple opportunities to streamline further as it expanded its operations to meet the growing demand for home care services. These opportunities highlighted the need for efficient systems and processes to ensure continued excellence in care delivery.  

The St-Hyacinthe franchise was strategically chosen for its high number of short home care visits contracted by the local health system. This high number of short visits meant that a care worker would have to travel multiple times in a day to complete all their scheduled visits. 

Opportunity 1: Connect care management systems 

Bien Chez Soi relied primarily on manual processes for coordinating care, including paper and spreadsheet-based scheduling tools. This more traditional and fragmented approach created inefficiencies that increased the administrative workload. It also made it difficult to manage caregiver availability and travel time effectively. Without a more sophisticated approach, some of Bien Chez Soi’s franchises struggled to scale while continuing to meet its operational goals and ensure client satisfaction.  

Bien Chez Soi recognized it needed to integrate systems and centralize operations to improve efficiency and visibility.

Opportunity 2: Cut staffing shortages and reduce burnout 

Bien Chez Soi relies on caregivers, many of whom have previously worked in the public system. These care workers can experience burnout stemming from unstable schedules, excessive overtime, and the emotional toll of providing care in challenging circumstances.  

The unpredictability of assignments meant caregivers were frequently overworked or underutilized, leading to dissatisfaction and turnover. The logistical challenges of scheduling and assigning caregivers efficiently exacerbated these issues, leaving some shifts unfilled and creating stress for both staff and clients. 

By improving scheduling stability and efficiency, Bien Chez Soi saw an opportunity to improve relationships with its staff, reduce caregiver burnout, and improve employee retention.  

Opportunity 3: More efficient resource management

Several franchises struggled with inefficient staff scheduling, short visits, high ‘vacant visit’ rates, or a combination of these issues. 

Short visits are costly when the routes between each location are not taken into consideration or done manually. Scheduling multiple short visits can increase travel time and costs. More efficient scheduling and route optimization seeks to plan visit trajectories so that caregivers can spend more of their time providing care rather than on the road.  

When managing a lot of part-time staff and short visits, it’s important to optimize care workers’ schedules with visits to fit a minimum 3-hour block ¹. Otherwise, the overall cost of delivering care increases for the agency. 

Vacant visits are another scheduling challenge. A vacant visit is a scheduled caregiving session that remains unassigned to a caregiver or that goes unfulfilled; for example, a client who needs service but is not served because of scheduling conflicts. Vacant visits occur when there are mismatches between caregiver availability and the client’s needs. Reducing vacant visits is crucial for maintaining care continuity, client satisfaction, and operational efficiency.  

Bien Chez Soi found that for some franchises, managing short visits, evolving schedules, and vacant visits created significant administrative costs. The company needed to optimize resource allocation and ensure profitability while maintaining service quality. 

The Solution

To address these challenges, Bien Chez Soi recognized the need to incorporate integrated digital solutions and selected AlayaCare’s Visit Optimizer. They launched a pilot project with their St-Hyacinthe franchise. This advanced tool is specifically designed to tackle the complexities of home care scheduling while driving efficiency and improving caregiver satisfaction. AlayaCare’s Visit Optimizer analyzes caregiver schedules, skill sets, and geographic locations to ensure the most appropriate caregiver is assigned to each client.  

The St-Hyacinthe franchise was strategically chosen for its high vacancy rates and shorter-than-average visit lengths, presenting an ideal environment to test the effectiveness of Visit Optimizer to streamline operations, improve scheduling efficiency, and enhance overall service delivery.

Efficiently assign caregivers to visits

Visit Optimizer matches and assigns care providers to vacant visits based on a number of pre-defined parameters, such as qualifications, proximity, and daily hours. It also optimizes the route, calculating travel distances and traffic patterns.  

This allows for the creation of more efficient routes, minimizing travel time between appointments, reducing operational costs, and enabling caregivers to spend more time with clients.

Better client outcomes

This is not just beneficial for the agency — clients benefit, too. Visit Optimizer helps ensure clients have their care needs met by ensuring better care continuity.

This tool also enables Bien Chez Soi to assign caseloads and shifts to care providers based on their availability and qualifications while also ensuring care continuity — so clients receive care from the workers they know, trust, and feel comfortable with.

Reducing scheduling time

Scheduling visits can be challenging and time-consuming, but Visit Optimizer streamlines this process with its innovative features. By automating the manual assignment of care workers, the tool significantly reduces the administrative burden for schedulers while balancing workforce efficiency. Instead of spending time searching, matching, and negotiating with caregivers to fill vacant visits, agencies can rely on Visit Optimizer’s advanced algorithms to pair caregivers with patients based on configurable criteria — ensuring the best fit and preserving care continuity.  

Additionally, the tool improves business operations by minimizing manual effort and reducing reliance on guesswork, allowing administrative staff to focus on high-priority tasks. By optimizing travel routes and reducing mileage costs, Visit Optimizer helps maximize the time caregivers spend on direct patient care.

The Results

Bien Chez Soi conducted a careful analysis of the outcomes between ​​July 2024, before they implemented the new tool, and October 2024, after the implementation. AlayaCare’s Visit Optimizer delivered significant improvements across administrative, caregiver, and business development functions, positioning Bien Chez Soi for sustainable growth.

1. Improvements to administrative functions

The introduction of Visit Optimizer streamlined administrative tasks, enabling higher workforce efficiency. By automating scheduling processes and providing faster access to staff availabilities to fill vacant visits with the right person for the visit, Bien Chez Soi achieved greater efficiency and professionalism in its administrative workflows. These improvements allowed the organization to handle increased demand without adding unnecessary overhead. 

Key outcomes included: 

• Reduced vacant visits: A 42% reduction in vacant visits ensured better resource utilization and improved service delivery.
• Time savings: Scheduling tasks that previously required extensive manual effort were completed 68% faster, freeing up staff to focus on strategic initiatives.
• Work-life balance for schedulers: Previously, the scheduler worked 84-hour weeks to manage workloads. With the Visit Optimizer, two schedulers now complete the same tasks in a combined 30 hours weekly. ²
• Administrative cost savings: Saving about 50 hours a week represents a yearly savings of $65,000 at the branch level.³
• Improved continuity of care: Continuity of care increased by 6% for clients requiring short service hours, helping build relationships between caregivers and clients.

2. Improvements for caregivers

The implementation of Visit Optimizer significantly enhanced the daily work experience for Bien Chez Soi’s caregivers. By stabilizing schedules and optimizing routes, the tool ensured that caregivers were assigned visits that were close to them and were appropriate for their qualifications. This transformation addressed long-standing challenges related to burnout and job satisfaction, key factors in caregiver retention. 

Key outcomes included:

• Increased productivity: Average caregiver work hours rose from 4.7 to 5.9 hours per day, providing more consistent income and reducing downtime.
• Scheduling stability: Caregivers received weekly schedules, compared to receiving updates only two days before a visit. This provided a sense of predictability and stability, increasing employee satisfaction.
• Reduced overtime: More efficient scheduling spread out visit assignments, which minimized overtime and created a better balance between work demands and personal life for caregivers.
• Enhanced professionalism: The streamlined scheduling process boosted the credibility of Bien Chez Soi and fostered trust between administrative staff and caregivers.

3. Business development gains and better insights for provincial partners

The operational efficiencies introduced by Visit Optimizer had a direct and measurable impact on Bien Chez Soi’s ability to grow its business. By streamlining resource allocation and improving vacant visit scheduling, the organization strengthened its partnerships and positioned itself as a trusted provider for both clients and referral partners.  

Indeed, Visit Optimizer provided Bien Chez Soi with the tools needed to enhance collaboration and transparency with government referral partners. By leveraging operational data more effectively, Bien Chez Soi strengthened its role as a trusted partner in Quebec’s healthcare ecosystem.

Key outcomes included:

• Improved care delivery margins: Decreasing non-billable work hours allowed Bien Chez Soi to allocate resources more effectively, directly improving financial outcomes with 47% savings in total care worker payrolls⁴ and 32% on administrative staff payrolls⁵.
• Enhanced referral relationships: Regular updates with community health centre partners demonstrated their reliability, making Bien Chez Soi a trusted choice for urgent case assignments and new referrals.
• Capacity confidence: The ability to track and manage available caregiver hours in real-time enabled the organization to accept additional referrals without compromising service quality. 
• Enhanced reporting: Detailed and accurate reporting improved transparency, enabling better communication with government partners and fostering stronger relationships.

By offering better insights and fostering trust, Bien Chez Soi ensured that its services met the high standards required by provincial partners while continuing to grow its operations.

Empowering Home Care Excellence with AlayaCare

Bien Chez Soi’s partnership with AlayaCare has helped them overcome operational inefficiencies and achieve sustainable growth. By implementing Visit Optimizer, Bien Chez Soi improved care quality, reduced administrative burdens, and strengthened relationships with staff and referral partners. This partnership highlights AlayaCare’s ability to empower home care providers to deliver exceptional care while driving efficiency and growth.

If you’re ready to transform your home care operations, reduce inefficiencies, and drive sustainable growth, AlayaCare can help. Request a demo to see how AlayaCare can empower your organization. 

¹ In Canada, there’s a three-hour rule that requires employers to pay employees for a minimum of three hours at their regular rate of pay if they are required to work for a short period. This rule applies when employees are called in to work, even if there is no work for them to do. 
² The franchise owner took the role of Scheduler and invested more time than what would be expected from an employee. The weekly 84 hours would have been otherwise split among by 3 FTEs. 
³ The average hourly rate for schedulers in the industry is $25/ hour. 
⁴ Savings from maximizing billable hours of their field staff. A lot of them were paid a block of a minimum of 3 hours when they only worked one hour. 
⁵ Savings from removing overtime and inefficiencies