Niuz Bites
- Bulletin boards are in every home, facility, & community, but chances are they are largely overlooked.
- Intranets can be complicated, cumbersome collections of useful and useless information uploaded into a messy interface.
- Accessibility to your intranet by non-corporate staff is a nightmare for IT departments and a frustration point for employees.
It’s Not 1985 Anymore
In every hallway, backroom, lunchroom, and staff room, there’s one thing common to every senior care facility: the bulletin board. And every single one of them is littered with printed documents, a mish-mash of word art, policies and procedures, staff schedules, infection protocol updates, and more.
But if you were to ask 100% of the staff if they noticed anything new added to the bulletin board, 90% would say, “No”.
So the question becomes, “Why?”
Why, in the age of digital access to great stores of info at our fingertips, are we still relying on printed memos and notes from management that are ineffective, inefficient, and incredibly outdated?
And yes, government regulations require us to ensure certain documents are readily available to anyone, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have printed copies hanging on a wall. Every document you print is a digital document already. Digital documents can be made available to anyone with as little effort as printing, stapling, and pinning them up.
It’s time to commit to a bulletin board replacement: a new staff intranet for the mobile era. One that’s easy to access for anyone, anywhere.
The Online Chaos of Senior Care Intranet
Facilities still have cork boards cluttered with notices, memos, and schedules. And while many have moved (ahem… copied) a lot of the stuff they pin to those boards up to an intranet, it’s still just a lot of clutter in a new location.
The transition from a physical bulletin board to a digital one might have seemed like a step forward, but did we just digitize the chaos? In today’s fast-paced world, if something doesn’t beep, vibrate, or pop up on our screen, it might as well be invisible.
That’s where an integrated, mobile intranet application comes in. Choosing an intranet replacement that has been natively designed for a mobile experience means there’s no learning curve or training sessions required to show people how to access the app and find what they’re looking for.
The Opposite of Efficient
Time is a currency in senior care that we can’t afford to waste. Yet, many organizations are stuck in a labyrinth intranet of their own creation, where finding a simple form is like searching for a digital needle in a haystack. Not to mention staff having to find time to sit at a computer, in order to access a Sharepoint or other legacy corporate intranet site that only functions on a desktop. Our front-line staff are always on the move, providing care, comfort, and everything in between. So why tether them to a stationary device?
Moving to a mobile intranet solution based on a modern platform can quell the chaos and save on time. It’s far easier today for administrators to organize information intuitively, ensuring that navigation to critical policies or procedures in a rush is quick.
A mobile intranet also means that your extended staff can access other information where and when they need it. Like access to payroll or benefits information when they’re on the phone booking a dentist appointment, or looking up what’s included in your Employee Assistance Program (EAP) when they’re dealing with some personal challenges.
Moving to a mobile solution lets your staff benefit from everything you’re doing for them on their terms and on their timeline.
Intranet Access for Me (but not for Thee)
Restricting intranet access might sound like a way to maintain security or ensure that only relevant staff see certain information. But what’s the real cost? When front-line staff are denied access to crucial information, it’s not just an inconvenience, it’s a barrier to providing the best care possible.
Restricting access to a corporate intranet by, say, corporate email, can have the knock-on effect of denying access to a number of staff that need it – including temp staff, volunteers, contracted services like housekeeping, environmental, food services, facility maintenance, and more.
Some legacy systems are also inflexible, meaning that you only have a choice to use something like a corporate email to grant access. For those not explicitly in your systems (see above) that means being denied access to links to payroll and scheduling systems, benefits and wellness programs, and corporate policies and procedures.
With a modern intranet, the administrator not only controls and grants access to whoever they deem worthy, they also control what information is available. Information should flow freely (while maintaining privacy and security standards, of course), ensuring that everyone is informed, empowered, and equipped to do their jobs effectively.
More Benefits to a Mobile Intranet System
A mobile intranet isn’t just a modern luxury; it’s a modern necessity. It’s about bringing the intranet into frontline care staffs’ pockets, table, laptop, or the nursing iPad, making it accessible wherever they are, right at their fingertips. This isn’t just about convenience; it’s about efficiency and ensuring that staff have immediate access to the information they need, when they need it.
Some of the many advantages include:
- Ease of transition. A simplified intranet focuses on the essentials, removing unnecessary complexity and making it easier for everyone to find what they need.
- Faster onboarding. The beauty of a well-designed mobile intranet is its intuitiveness. If your team can navigate a smartphone, they can navigate a mobile intranet. Plus, the time invested in a brief training session is reclaimed tenfold through the efficiency gains.
- No sacrifice to security. A robust mobile intranet includes secure login protocols, encryption, and user-specific access controls to ensure that sensitive information is only accessible to authorized personnel.
- Long-term cost savings. The long-term benefits—improved efficiency, better communication, and time savings—far outweigh these initial investments. Plus, many mobile intranet solutions are scalable, allowing you to start small and expand as needed.
It’s time to challenge the notion that “nobody cares about your intranet” in senior care.
By embracing a simplified, intuitive, mobile-friendly intranet, we can break free from the digital clutter of the past. We can transform our intranets into dynamic, efficient tools that support our front-line staff, rather than hinder them. It’s not just about keeping up with the times, it’s about setting a new standard for communication and efficiency in senior care. So, let’s turn the page on the digital bulletin board era and step into a future where our intranets are as dynamic and caring as the staff who use them.