BeeFound, an online platform that enables General Practice to search for and book GP, Nurse Practitioner, Registered Nurse, and Enrolled Nurse Locums has been named as one of three finalists in the New Zealand section at the 2018 NZHIT Innovation Awards.
New Zealand Health IT (NZHIT) is an industry group of health software companies, partners, consultants and healthcare providers, with a broad range of supporting members including academia, clinicians, researchers and policy makers.
The awards have been established to recognise the “innovation, investment and hard work that goes into creating solutions that have a positive impact on the delivery of healthcare services.”
BeeFound was developed by Pegasus Health in June 2017 in response to requests from their general practice members for support with workforce cover. Many general practices described the ongoing struggle of finding locum cover and asked Pegasus to help with a solution. Through on-going research, an online platform running in the UK caught the attention of the team, and communications commenced with the Scottish developer.
BeeFoundNZ was developed for use in New Zealand and Canterbury practices were first to come on board. Licencing is now available to Primary Health Organisations (PHOs) across New Zealand. To date, 2,619 GP and Nurse Locum sessions have been booked through BeeFound assisting up to 103 practices in Canterbury.
Three PHOs who have recently come onboard – Eastern Bay Primary Health Alliance, Tū Ora Compass Health and Te Awakairangi Health Network bring coverage to the Eastern Bay of Plenty and the Greater Wellington regions.
Mark Liddle, Chief Operating Officer for Pegasus Health says what began as a means of ensuring the wellbeing of general practice staff, through staff cover, has now become a very popular matching service for both practices and locums.
“Practices can now just do one online search for staff without having to pay the fees per booking charged by locum agencies. They can set up preferred locums who will be shown first if they have availability. Locums can use BeeFound for free, pick which practices they’d like to work with and easily see and confirm bookings on-the-go,” says Mark.
Feedback from general practice and locum alike for the service has been very positive. Registered Nurse Locum Alison Cane has become a regular user.
“I’ve used BeeFound multiple times since April this year and had almost full time work. I found the calendar and text service especially useful. This keeps all my bookings and info in the same place and reminds me of bookings,” says Alison.
Harewood Medical Centre has been using BeeFound since January 2018. Practice Manager, Johanna Geertsema says it is a great way to see who is available when looking for a locum.
“It’s very easy to load information into the system. We use BeeFound quite regularly. It’s a great tool,” says Johanna.
Eirlys Beverley-Stone, Digital Platform Manager for Pegasus Health is delighted with the recognition.
“Being named as a finalist for this award is a great incentive. We’re planning a follow up survey to the initial Pegasus self-care survey for 2019. We hope to confirm early indications from user feedback that the stress and time involved in finding locum cover for practices has reduced since BeeFound became available,” says Eirlys.
For more information about BeeFound visit the BeeFound website.
For more information about the awards visit the NZHIT website.