Good practice:

Recording of long-term care services by NFC technology

Due to the highly increasing demands for long-term care services at home formal care providers need to optimize their work processes, care planning and care documentation. Aleja ICT based service that embed mobile phones with Near Field Technology (NFC) could effectively support the care service management.
Android phones with NFC are used by all formal care providers. They register start of their services at a user’s home by touching a RFID sticker within the user’s premises, though registering the start of the service. Then they register in the mobile app the service type. When the care service is finished, the care provider touches again the RFID sticker to register the completion of the service. All data are transmitted on-line to a back-office server. The data are then used by the management for monitoring of the care performance, accounting, billing of the provided services, a payroll and to improve service management and personal care planning. The solution includes service management tools e.g. reporting, statistics, assessment of eligibility for LTC, LTC personal care planning and exports of data.
Stakeholders/beneficiaries are LTC and HC service providers in a community (Health&Social Care Centers, Elderly Homes, private care service providers).
The solution supports the following national strategies:
-Strategy on the aging society, UMAR 2017
-Resolution on the healthcare plan 2015 – 2025,MoH,2015
-Smart specialization of Slovenia,2015

Staff involved:
a) 3 persons at the solution provider
b) field+accounting staff at the HC service provider
Implementation costs are 20.000€ per installation side (Back office SW solution + 15 mobiles with apps +100 RFIDs)
The solution provider charges the users annually 7.000€ per installation

Since 2019 Aleja software tool has been used in three LTC national pilot project in 8 Slovenian municipalities. The tool is an upgrade of the SW solution implemented for HC services that is successfully used in 81 Slovenian municipalities (38%). 30% of HC service providers in Slovenia use the software at their daily work. The application is indispensable at providing reports and statistics data for the Ministry of Health and the Social Protection Institute of the Republic of Slovenia.

The major challenge was to design a friendly user interface for the ICT solution users and to systematically re-organized reporting system that would result in a more effective collection of data for reporting and statistical analysis.

The Aleja LTC service support solution has great potential for cross-boarder transfer and implementation in local communities globally.
The users of Aleja software report positive experiences:
- better planning and coordinating of work of districts
- better distribution of work
- user-friendly application
- reduction of time-consuming paper administration
- reduction of internal costs.
It is also a case study that enables learning experience on:
- how to electronically support LTC services (administration, electronic recording of the field work, database),
- how to better organize and coordinate LTC services
- how to arrange systematic collection of data for reporting and statistics.