VHA Home HealthCare deploys smartphone management

By improving the management of its large fleet of smartphones, Toronto-based VHA Home HealthCare (VHA) has found a way to make its employees happier and to reduce costs significantly at the same time.

Through an alliance with Valet Wireless, a company that manages the distribution of the phones, retrieves them when employees leave, and fixes them when repairs or maintenance are needed, VHA is now saving over $30,000 a month.

“Healthcare can be a high turnover environment when it comes to human resources,” said Alistair Forsyth, CIO at VHA, a large, non-profit homecare agency. “We maintain about 2,200 smartphones across the organization, but we were losing too many devices each month as employees left and didn’t turn in their phones.”

“Before, we were replacing nearly 30 percent of our phones each year,” he said. “Now, we’re at a 96 percent return rate.”

Forsyth noted that smartphones have become a lifeline for visiting nurses and support workers providing care to clients. Staff run pretty much everything they need on their phones – including electronic patient records, emails, scheduling software, and programs tracking expenses.

But the devices are expensive, costing hundreds of dollars per unit.

So, when they’re lost or not turned in, it’s a great cost to VHA.

For its part, Valet Wireless has instituted a wide-ranging service that makes it easy for employees to return or repair their devices. Before, it was inconvenient and sometimes difficult to give back devices, especially for employees working in the community who otherwise weren’t coming into the office.

Now, Valet Wireless quickly contacts departing employees about their phones and provides instructions on how to return them with very little effort.

“Our returns process is inspired by Amazon,” said Gerry Skipwith, president of Valet Wireless. “We make it very easy for employees to return their devices. We send a return package with everything the individual needs – instructions, packaging, shipping slips and a number to call if they need help. There’s no cost to them and very little trouble.”

For that reason, VHA is now getting most of its phones back. After receiving the returned device, Valet Wireless then refurbishes it so the phone can be used again by new employees.

“Especially with the custom VHA-branded skins, the refurbished phones look brand new,” said Skipwith.

Valet Wireless also sets up the phones with all the mobile applications VHA employees need to do their work. And to activate the software, all team members have to do is enter a temporary password and they’re up-and-running.

The company has taken over much of the everyday troubleshooting for VHA and provides 24×7 technical support for the phones when nurses, therapists and support workers run into issues.

“It used to be that 40 to 50 percent of the calls to our service desk were about phones or logins and password-related problems,” said Forsyth. “Now, Valet Wireless takes care of these issues and our own service desk can focus on more value-added work.”

For example, VHA’s Digital team has been working on the creation of a Natural Language Processing powered chatbot for its myVHA client portal that would allow homecare clients and family members to communicate with the portal in everyday language.

VHA’s frontline staff are much happier about repairs and troubleshooting, too. It used to be that if a phone broke or developed a problem, the employee needed to bring it into VHA’s Toronto head office. As VHA team members work in communities across southern Ontario, this was sometimes a major undertaking.

It would involve lost time waiting for the repair – time that could have been spent caring for clients.

In contrast, the Valet Wireless team tries to solve issues over the phone or online. And if the phone has a physical issue, the employee simply puts it into an envelope, and it’s couriered back for repair. A working device is returned to them in less than a day. It’s both quick and simple.

Forsyth said the ease and speed with which phone problems and repairs are now handled has done wonders for employee relations. That’s because the aim now is to reduce time and trouble for the staff, making the fix simple and easy, so they are able to focus their time on providing client care.