In its latest, hotly anticipated release, CoolCare has added two major features to its care home management software, CoolCare4.
Release 4.3 includes both a staff portal and a text messaging service to help care homes communicate more easily with their staff. The additions to CoolCare’s innovative software are recognition of an increasing need in the care sector to communicate with staff instantly to safely staff homes, improve the efficiency of hours management and aid retention.
CoolCare Managing Director, Fiona Hale, commented on the release:
“CoolCare release 4.3 is a real landmark for us. Allowing staff to manage their own holidays, and see their hours at any time on their own devices, is a fabulous empowerment tool, giving staff more control over their working lives in this turbulent recruitment market.
It also reduces administration time taken managing holiday requests and answering pay queries. Speaking to one of our pilot homes yesterday, the manager told me that prior to using our staff portal, he’d have a queue of people waiting outside his office every morning to talk about their hours. Now, he barely gets any queries. In just a couple of months of usage, it has revolutionised his working day, giving him more time to spend with his residents and running his business. I’m so excited for all our customers to share these benefits!”
Following the release, staff from care homes using CoolCare4 will have their own login, allowing them to see and update important information about their working lives. Through access to the CoolCare4 staff portal, staff will be able to see a calendar view of their shifts, holiday, training and absence. It also allows them to manage their hours, seeing what shifts they are planned to work and giving them the option to take on extra shifts.
The new text messaging feature allows CoolCare’s customers to send custom messages to one or multiple staff members. Working alongside the staff portal, the home can send SMS requests to cover a shift directly from the rota.
Leigh Ellis, CoolCare Technical Director, added:
“Whilst this is a milestone in CoolCare4’s development, given the breadth of features in this release, CoolCare has actually made in excess of 35 releases since its initial launch. All of which include feature enhancements and new functionality.
We take a lot of pride in the way we develop our software, putting user experience and behaviour driven development at the heart of our processes. We then learn how our customers interact with the software and make constant enhancements to further improve ease of use.”
CoolCare’s full in-house development team is now continuing its focus on staff management features for its next significant development milestone.
