Since October, home aids of the town of Pessac have been equipped with NFC-enabled mobile phones. This contactless tool allows them to receive and transmit to CCAS, in real-time, information related to their daily missions. The mayor hopes to improve the management of welfare payments.
Save time on data processing
At the communal social action center of Pessac (CCAS), paper records of welfare payments delivered to residents will soon be a distant memory. Typed aide schedules, time sheets, and activity reports will be a thing of the past. “At the end of each month, an agent takes three days to re-enter this information into the computer server of the CCAS,” says Françoise Barthelot, head of senior services in Pessac.
Home aides will from now on be equipped with an NFC-enabled mobile phone (10 euros excluding a monthly subscription per device) and an identification badge. Aide recipients will also have a personal identification badge. When linked with a recipient’s badge, the aide’s phone will activate the transmission of information related to their daily operations: automatically clocking in visits, relaying information related to individual care, sending alerts… “This technology has emerged as a simple and effective response to problems with verification and billing services provided to our citizens,” said Philip Fremont, director of information systems of the town of Pessac. Welfare payments will be remotely managed by the CCAS in near real time.
More time to care for recipients
But beyond a simple time clock, the service will offer agents better visibility of their schedule and allow them to receive instructions and information updates automatically. They will have access to an information sheet for each recipient visited, which will report any changes or issue alerts encountered during the home care visit. Finally, they will have access to a list of resources such as doctors and emergency services. “Professionals will continue to make visits but their time will be spent talking about the care of beneficiaries rather than managing administrative aspects,” Françoise Barthelot explains. The arrival of this technology could help strengthen the role that individuals play in the social support system while streamlining operations.
An innovative initiative for France
For this project, Pessac has partnered with SSII GFI, a specialist in management solutions for local communities. The company has deployed its software AS-Web, designed to ease the work of home aids. It has added a special mobile application with NFC technology specific to Pessac. The device is relatively intuitive thanks to its utilization of the phone’s touch screen.
The approach of the town of Pessac is fairly unique in France. Public experiments were conducted in Nice and Caen but the integration of such a solution within the community is a bold step. The trailblazing spirit is now encoded in this Gironde city’s DNA, since it joined the circle of nine pilot cities chosen by the French government in 2010 to accelerate contactless services.
- Read the original article on Aecom.org (in french)
Photos credits: City of Pessac
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Translated by Genny Cortinovis
