Q&A With a SafetyLine Customer: Seasons Health Therapies

About Seasons Health Therapies

Seasons Health Therapies has been serving Kamloops and the interior of British Columbia, Canada since 1996. The company employs a close knit group of occupational therapists, kinesiologists, clinical counselors, vocational rehabilitation, and return-to-work specialists, all of whom share one common goal: “to help you keep doing the things you want to do… because life changes.” Seasons knows that injuries occur every day, whether it be sports, motor vehicle, surgery, stroke, or age-related. Regardless of age or condition, therapists work with clients to improve their quality of life and are dedicated to helping people live their lives to the fullest. With a head office located in Kamloops, workers often travel throughout BC’s interior to provide thorough rehabilitation services and care to clients in their homes.

Are healthcare workers considered lone workers?

Often doing what is best for the client means working outside of the clinic and in the community. The nature of therapists’ duties at Seasons makes them lone workers because they are often performing their duties out of office and in patients’ homes. It’s very common for therapists to travel and work alone.

What are the problems?

Workers are exposed daily to the realities of harsh injuries and traumas. Given the unpredictable state, manner, and personalities of patients, in addition to working in a remote and unfamiliar place, the safety risk is high. For Seasons Health Therapies, it’s crucial to know that their workers are safe, wherever and whenever they go. Seasons recognizes that it is impossible to provide service to employees of other companies in a wide variety of industries, without first challenging themselves to be sure that their working environment is as safe as possible.

For Seasons, doing what is best for the client is the top priority – this often means working in the clinic, as well as the community. Working in the homes of patients exposes Seasons employees to several unique risks. Clients experiencing injury or trauma may be unpredictable or aggressive. Thus, working in isolation with these people can be dangerous. The fact that these employees are working alone and in isolation in the homes of clients amplifies this danger. Furthermore, lone time on the road traveling to clients’ homes creates the opportunity for safety hazards associated with driving, weather conditions, and automotive accidents. Seasons needs to know that their workers are safe on the job, wherever that job may be. Several industries employ lone workers that are experiencing this same need, such as construction companies, water service companies, and organizations within the electrical sector. Regardless of the industry or job, SafetyLine solves this lone worker monitoring problem and provides a comprehensive, fail-proof solution.

SafetyLine as a solution 

To allow their employees to continue giving comprehensive and at-home care to clients, Seasons knew that it was necessary to take on additional safety measures which would ensure the safety of their employees. Seasons was seeking an automated service that was more convenient and less time-consuming than a call center. Traditional work alone monitoring, like call centers, have failed to leverage technological advancements. Not only are call centers labour intensive and time-consuming, but they are also costly. Not to mention, traditional work alone monitoring systems often result in accidental incident discovery instead of proactive management.

Automated, cloud-based monitoring systems leverage the latest technology to automatically prompt workers to check-in, as well as keep track of these check-ins. Notifications are sent to monitors if a check-in time is missed, and alerts are sent to emergency contacts if there is a confirmed emergency. Lastly, automated monitoring systems provide supervisors with real-time GPS locations and work history during emergencies. All these added features replace expensive call centers and inefficient manual processes. In summary, automated systems save time, money, improve insurance expenses, and better safety outcomes. SafetyLine is a lone worker monitoring solution that operates a complete safety network on all your devices. Seasons uses it to track workers when they are alone, remote, and traveling to or at a client’s home. SafetyLine also monitors employees as they are working. Proactive check-in timers let therapists check in at pre-set time intervals to let Seasons know they are safe. If a therapist is entering a client’s home for the first time, it might make sense to set a shorter required check-in interval, for instance. If a therapist misses a check-in, monitors are notified of a potential emergency. Therapists can install the app on their smartphones and be well-equipped for their next out of office client. The software is easy to use, so Seasons sta􀄣 can continue to focus on helping their people. When cell service is not available, Seasons uses SafetyLine’s satellite devices integration to check in.

Why SafetyLine works for Seasons Health Therapies

We asked Dawn MacKenzie, Clinical Director at Seasons Health Therapies, about some of the company’s favorite benefits of using SafetyLine. She said that SafetyLine gives employees confidence in their safety when working with remote clients in an unpredictable environment. Since Seasons serves the interior of BC, employees are sometimes required to travel up to 3 or 4 hours to visit patients in their homes. MacKenzie says, “We want to make sure that both the client and our staff are as safe as possible.” Start and end monitoring, as well as hourly check-ins, provide comprehensive coverage for employee safety, as well. MacKenzie shares that employees are “using an app on their mobile phones and are checking in to SafetyLine every hour, just to make sure they’re safe.” Seasons also loves the text feature in SafetyLine, which allows workers to specify their activities. Whether an employee is visiting a client, traveling to or from their destination, or sharing specific notes about the job, this feature is extremely useful in providing background information about a visit. Given the fact that many clients of Seasons live in very remote areas, SafetyLine’s satellite device is advantageous for checking in when there is no cell service.

Lastly, MacKenzie and employees at Seasons love the fact that SafetyLine monitors everything automatically and behind the scenes, and provides an immediate notification if there is an emergency. This instantaneous reaction time allows Seasons to respond as quickly as possible. The app works on all of the devices that employees already own: “We didn’t have to buy anything new,” says MacKenzie. She concludes by saying that a significant component of Seasons’ dedication to SafetyLine has been “making sure that our workers know that we care about their safety and feel safe.”

Overall, Seasons said that safety systems must be fail-safe due to travel hazards, injured patient and client risks, and dangers that are exposed while working alone or in isolation. However, it is also important that monitoring systems be convenient and not burdensome. They said that SafetyLine provides both a better experience for workers in the 􀄤 eld, as well as an economicallysound solution. Seasons is also delighted with the fact that SafetyLine has taken responsibility for orientation and provided thorough training on how to use the app. Seasons has been using SafetyLine for over 4 years now and are dedicated to them as a safety monitoring system.