Getting caregivers from point A to B on time in home healthcare can be difficult. However, Salesforce Maps is a great way to solve this challenging use case. Let's examine how to optimize routes, reduce driving time, and increase patient visits.
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The demand for in-home healthcare is steadily increasing, fueled by limited facility capacity, an aging population, and insurance companies' efforts to lower care costs. However, caregivers often need help planning their daily routes, which can distract them from what they do best: providing high-quality care. To address the growing demands of home health, caregivers need an automated way to plan their visits efficiently.
Inefficient Routes, Low Caregiver Utilization, and Late Appointments
Salesforce Maps
Higher Caregiver Utilization, More Patient Visits, Reduced Driving Time, Actionable Insights into High-Potential Areas
Without an automated solution, home health routing faces several significant challenges that can impact both caregivers and patients.
Inefficient Route Planning
It can be challenging to plan the most efficient routes. Firstly, increased travel times can diminish caregiver utilization and lead to longer patient wait times, ultimately affecting satisfaction levels for both parties. Caregivers often find themselves bogged down with administrative tasks, which detracts from their ability to provide timely care.
Additionally, inefficient routes are expensive. Consider the overhead fuel costs caused by longer routes, or overtime pay when caregivers work longer hours due to administrative tasks.
Overlooking Details
Secondly, while route planning typically accounts for distance, it often overlooks critical factors such as population density, traffic, and construction. For example, while two appointments geographically close in New York City may technically be closer, similar appointments spaced far apart in rural Wisconsin could have faster travel times.
Care Schedule Integration
Moreover, many routing solutions fail to integrate with care schedules, forcing caregivers to input appointment locations each day manually. Although they may end up with a logical route for their visits, this manual process consumes valuable time that they could have dedicated to patient care.
HIPAA Compliance
Lastly, routing solutions must adhere to HIPAA regulations. If caregivers are required to input sensitive patient information, any lack of compliance could jeopardize patient confidentiality and trust.
However, Salesforce Maps can help address these issues through automated solutions, enhancing efficiency and improving the overall quality of home health care.
Efficient route planning requires an automated mapping solution integrating caregiver schedules with patient data. At Penrod, we implement Salesforce Maps in our home healthcare platform. Salesforce Maps is HIPAA compliant and offers a range of features that help caregivers see more patients, lower driving time, and improve patient satisfaction.
First, Salesforce Maps integrates with Health Cloud, a leading patient management platform. Health Cloud holds caregiver appointment data along with a robust 360-degree patient profile. Daily routes can be automatically created based on a care team's schedule without relying on caregivers to perform administrative tasks. Appointment duration, distance, and other factors are consistently applied to ensure accuracy. Additionally, routes will adjust in real-time with appointment updates or cancellations.
Salesforce Maps tracks traffic conditions throughout the day and suggests more efficient routes whenever possible. If delays occur, notifications can update patients with adjusted arrival times to keep them in the loop.
Salesforce Maps solves one of home health's most challenging problems. By automating route planning and integrating seamlessly with Health Cloud, caregivers can focus more on delivering high-quality care and less on administrative work. Providers can maximize caregiver utilization, enhance patient satisfaction, and generate actionable insights into service delivery. As the demand for in-home healthcare continues to grow, solutions like Salesforce Maps are integral for ensuring effective, efficient, and patient-centered care.