Helping to Connect Health and Support Services
Client Profile
The Hamilton Community Care Access Centre (HCCAC) is a statutory corporation that helps people of all ages connect to health and support services in the Hamilton region. When home care is not an option, HCCAC also helps with placement into long-term care homes.
The Situation
Before working with the NetSimplicity team, Hamilton Community Care Access Centre’s system included an electronic spreadsheet on a shared drive and resources were booked via a sign-out binder. Yet the staff realized that room booking resources required an advanced scheduling system.
An assessment of the Centre’s system revealed the following scheduling challenges facing the HCCAC staff:
- The excel spreadsheet could only be used by one person at a time. Often, that person would forget to sign out of the sheet, tying it up for others.
- Recurring bookings had to be scheduled manually, a time-consuming activity.
- Having too many users working with the same spreadsheet resulted in deleted bookings.
- With the arrival of a new year, all the previous year’s bookings were carried over by the person creating the new year’s schedule. This created numerous problems in the system.
The Solution
The Hamilton Community Care Access Centre purchased and began using Meeting Room Manager in April, 2005. They now utilize Meeting Room Manager (MRM) on their main site to schedule all activities in the Centre.
Designated staff have logon capabilities to reserve rooms and equipment at their convenience. Many more have the ability to view the updated schedule from their browser.
Results
Meeting Room Manager has helped Hamilton Community Care Access Centre manage their facility more effectively and ultimately, improve the efficiency of coordinating meeting schedules for the organization.
- With the help of the report module, the Receptionist now easily prints reports each day to review and display bookings.
- The software is user friendly, and all who have used the system report it as one of the best pieces of software purchased by the Centre.
- MRM has streamlined the process of room booking for the staff. Now, only designated staff can use the system, and recurring bookings are denoted with ease.
- No bookings have been “lost” since implementing the system. Bookings are now color-coded and name stamped with the creator’s information.