Skills Matching

Skills Matching allows you to automate some of the job of choosing Caregivers and Clients who will "fit" each other. When you go to find a caregiver to work a Service, the Skills matching feature will narrow down the choices of who can be assigned to the shift based on what Skills are required for the Service compared to what Skills any given caregiver has. If you try to assign a caregiver who does not have the required Skills, you will be warned about the problem before you can assign them. Since Skills Matching is based off of the Skills feature, you should make sure you've read through the Skills section and properly setup skills for both clients and services so that you can make use of Skills Matching.

Overview

Here is an overview of setting up and using Skills Matching in Rosemark.

1) Configure Skills. Add Categories and Skills in the Skills Configuration form (File->Configuration->Skills).

2) Setup Caregiver Skills. On each Active Caregiver, indicate which of the Skills they can perform (Caregiver form, Skills button).

3) Setup Service Skills. For each Client's Service, indicate which Skills are required for assignment (Client form, View button [next to Services list], Service form, Skills button).

4) Find Caregivers whose Skills match the Client's.
The Add Available button will only include Caregivers who match. If you go ahead and add a Caregiver directly, you'll see they have no red potential Shifts to assign them; if you override availability (Possibly Available checkbox) and try to assign a Caregiver who doesn't have one or more Skills that the Service needs, you'll be warned and given the opportunity to override or cancel.

Configuring Skills for Matching

To configure Skills so that they may be used for Skills Matching, first go to the Skills Configuration form (File->Configuration->Skills). From here you can decide whether you want the Skills associated with any given service to be required for that service by default or not. By checking the checkbox that says "Skills on service are required for caregiver matching by default", Skills associated with any service will, by default, be required for assignment to that service.

Figure 111: Skills Matching Default

Note that you can also adjust what is required for a service on a more individual basis in the Skills for Service form of any service, so this box does not necessarily need to be checked to make use of Skills matching. The main distinction is whether you are primarily using Skills for Care Plans or Matching (or both). If you primarily use them for Care Plans, it's best to leave this un-checked. If you primarily use them for Matching, leave it checked.

Setting Up Skills Matching for Services

If a Client needs a Caregiver to be able to perform a specific task, this can be added as a requirement to their Service using Skills Matching. This is done from the Skills for Service form which can be reached by selecting the desired client in the client list, clicking View to get to their service form (if the client has multiple services you'll have to select the right one first), and the clicking the Skills button. If the initial configuration of Skills for this Service has already been done, you will already have check marks next to all the Skills you want associated with this service, and thus, whatever portion of those Skills you want to be required for that Service should already be checked. If not see the Skills section and perform the initial Skills configuration.

If you select one of the checked Skills, you'll notice that configuration options become available under the Skills list. For Skills Matching your only concern will be the Required for caregiver matching checkbox. This box will start out containing a green square, indicating that the Skill is set to default. You can also see if a Skill is set to default at a glance by the fact that the symbol right next to the Skill in the Skills list (either a black dot or an exclamation point) will be surrounded by red parentheses. An exclamation point indicates that the Skill is required for the service, while a dot indicates that it is not. Thus, if the red parentheses are surrounding an exclamation point, you'll know that the default is for any associated Skills in the service to be required (To adjust the default, see Configuring Skills for Matching above).

Figure 112: Indicators of Skill's Status for Matching (Top) and Skills Matching Configuration Area in Svc. (Bottom)

To override the default you click the checkbox and the green square will disappear leaving the box empty. At this point the Skill is NOT required for the Service. If you click it once more the box will contain a check mark. When the box is checked the Skill IS required for the service, regardless of the default settings. Once you're satisfied just click Apply, or if you don't want to keep the changes you've made, you can go back to the last point you clicked Apply by clicking Revert.

You can also change whether a Skill is needed or not by clicking directly on the status icon (Exclamation Point or Dot) to toggle them. Here is a zoomed-in shot explaining what the different icons mean.

Figure 113: Skills configuration key

Skills Matching on the Planner

If Skills are properly setup for both Services and Caregivers, it can make finding good candidates for Shifts much easier. When you are on a Planner with Open Shifts, clicking on Add Available will put everyone who could take the Shift on the Planner. This takes into account Caregiver Availability, Service Types worked, and Skills matching. If a Service indicates the need for a particular Skill, only those with that Skill will appear.

If that still does not yield enough choices, you can override these limits by clicking on the Possibly Available checkbox. When you do so, the Add Available button will change to Add Possibly Available. Add Possibly Available will ignore Caregiver Availability, Skills and Service Types worked. Note that it will NOT override Assigned Shifts.

If you go ahead and try to assign someone who does not have the required Skills, you will get a warning that lets you either cancel or assign it anyway.

Figure 114: Caregiver is missing some Skills, assign anyway?