What do you do when you have a staff member who has so much knowledge that you wish you could clone them?
Well, Peterborough City Council has done the next best thing and turned Geraldine Jinks in its technology enabled care and therapy team into an AI ChatBot.
Geraldine has worked for Peterborough City Council for 35 years. Her knowledge and skills as a therapy practitioner make her an invaluable staff member.
She knows pretty much everything there is to know about technology assisted care and how to help residents stay independent in their own homes for longer.
As a go-to team expert, she was inundated with questions from colleagues asking for advice on how to promote independence with the use of Technology Enabled Care. There were many questions that were simple for her to answer and things she was asked time and time again. While she didn’t mind helping, it took time and stopped her from completing her own tasks and dealing with more complex cases. Obviously, Geraldine doesn’t work 24/7 and the city council also allows her to take annual leave, so whenever she wasn’t at work, she was very much missed.
Geraldine’s manager recognised this and wanted to find a solution. Last year (2023), the council brought in Datnexa – an impact innovation partner who helped to bring ‘Hey Geraldine’ from page to product and Outcome Matters, an AI and emerging technology consultant. These partners have helped to streamline the council’s technology assisted care offer to help increase hospital discharge rates, increase wellbeing by helping with independence and ease the workload of carers. This was paid for using a Hospital Discharge fund awarded by the Government to ease winter pressures for local authorities. One of the solutions in Peterborough has been to develop an Hey Geraldine AI ChatBot.
Over the course of 3 months, Geraldine worked with the team to feed the AI tool information so it could answer questions asked on a daily basis in her usual chatty and direct manner.
‘Hey Geraldine’ has delivered the below improvements:
- Upskill the Workforce – The development of ‘Hey Geraldine’ has enhanced staff knowledge and confidence. It is more accessible to staff, allowing them to ask questions 24/7, including Bank Holidays.
- Saving the Occupational Therapy (OT) team time – ‘Hey Geraldine’ now answers the majority of questions for the OT team and as the ChatBot keeps learning, more and more complex questions are being included. This allows the team more uninterrupted time to complete other tasks. During the trial period the ChatBot saved the team 15 minutes per conversation. Over the six-week trial period a total of 1,200 conversations were had, which equates to over 300 hours.
- Increase OT productivity – With ‘Hey Geraldine’ being used to answer common questions it has empowered the Occupational Therapists to focus on more complex cases and strategic tasks.
- Promote Technology Adoption – ‘Hey Geraldine’ is part of a wider adoption of technology and digital solutions, including the implementation of the virtual Smart Flat, use of Co-Pilot and Magic Notes.
- Next steps – Following the success of Hey Geraldine with the staff, the next step is for a self-serve version for residents of Peterborough to access directly themselves.
The ChatBot is part of a suite of preventative measures to enable people to remain independent. It sits alongside a Virtual Smart Flat (a virtual show home of technology assisted care equipment) which also gives staff members visual information to support decision making. The council has also collaborated with our suppliers of equipment to provide ‘How To’ and information videos about appropriate use and installation.
‘Hey Geraldine’ can respond to contextual and practice-based questions, such as “I am working with a person who is forgetting to turn the oven off. What is available to help them?” providing a range of answers to include simple solutions (locking cooker valves and potential checks by the fire service). In addition, it will link to additional helpful resources.
Geraldine said: “It was so exciting to develop this ChatBot. Staff within the organisation can now ask ‘me’ questions whenever they want and receive a reply straightaway.
“It’s lovely that they’ve kept my name and some staff have told me that they actually thought they were chatting with me – I guess that’s because I’ve written all the answers! "
“The Hey Geraldine ChatBot helps staff get a response quickly – day or night. It also means that I am free to work on more complex cases and questions. I work quicker now and it’s easier to complete my own tasks as I’m not interrupted as much.”
Councillor Shabina Qayyum, cabinet member for adults and health at Peterborough City Council, said: “As a GP, I know how incredibly frustrating it can be for patients who are delayed in returning to their home after a stay in hospital. Delays also have an impact on the finances of both the NHS and local authorities.
“The use of technology assisted care like smart devices and home activity sensors can really help people to gain their independence quickly again. The Hey Geraldine ChatBot helps staff to put these technologies in place with all the knowledge and care that Geraldine herself would use.”
Hey Geraldine is just one of the latest technology solutions being used to develop the adult social care team at Peterborough City Council.
Image credit: Peterborough City Council
