Task Allocation System launched at Royal North Shore Hospital

HealthShare NSW (HSNSW) has launched the Task Allocation System (TAS), a software system that allows more efficient allocating of cleaning and portering tasks, as a pilot program at Royal North Shore Hospital (RNSH).

Date published: 03 May 2021

Author: Katie Harkin

Be sustainable Healthshare NSW News

TAS allows facilities management staff to track and submit all cleaning and portering tasks through a single, online system. This replaces verbal instruction and the use of the handheld radio systems, providing complete oversight of staff workload and allowing management to provide surge capacity for areas in the hospital experiencing peaks in demand.

Commencing on 17 March, TAS went live for discharge and terminal bed cleaning and reactive spot cleaning with all routine cleaning tasks going live in TAS during April. TAS will be rolled out for Services Support Officers (Porters and Wardspersons) in June this year.

“The journey with TAS started over two years ago in collaboration with the NSW MoH System Performance Support Branch and RNSH Management to design a new system based on the clinicians’ needs and also the needs of the facilities management at RNSH,” said Simon Quested, Program Manager. “This has been a great opportunity to see new technology being implemented for Food & Patient Support Services and seeing staff embracing the change”.

TAS has helped improve communication between staff and their supervisors thanks to the mobile messaging function. The system allows an even distribution of work across a large and diverse team. In addition, frontline staff now have a streamlined process for tasks being allocated, whereby staff simply tap on and tap off on tasks via mobile devices.

A new TAS Supervisors’ Portal has also been implemented to allow shift supervisors to move across the facility to view and allocate tasks via tablet devices, which will help improve service quality and engagement with staff.

“With the implementation of TAS, we’ll be able to have all of the work demand in the system, have oversight of it, and when the hospital demand level rises, we’ll be able to provide a really responsive service for patient flow,” said Romana de Beer, Operations Manager.

“From an operational perspective, we now have a system to better plan resource requirements in advance and view our overall service delivery and performance. This is an exciting time for us at RNSH”.

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