Author: Risto Jalovaara, CEO

Year 2022 – Fastronauts move to new ownership

| Risto Jalovaara, CEO

The new ownership guarantees that Fastroi’s know-how will also become part of the development of the Central European social sector in the DACH region. In the same context, the former owners decided to continue as the owners of Myneva Group in the future.

How to sum up the events of the past year appropriately, when interesting and positive things have happened throughout the year. At the same time, negative news has been heard from the world throughout the past year: Corona is still punishing, war has come closer to us, and inflation and increased energy prices are in the news almost every day.

How does the new ownership affect Fastroi and our customers?

The change of ownership took place at the end of March. This brought us sister companies and new colleagues from Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. At the same time, new experts joined the development of our new international Real-Time Care™ (RTC) software, and the common goal is to develop our products to also serve customers operating in the aforementioned markets. 

The current information systems we use will gradually change within the Group’s solutions, and other operating processes will also be unified with the other companies of the entire group. This requires the personnel to adapt to many changes, and probably this has partly brought with it a higher than normal turnover at Fastroi. However, someone wiser has probably stated that change is a possibility and I always want to strongly believe that. In the direction of customers, this will be seen in the future as even greater product development investments than before, and through that also hopefully in better quality of products and services than before.

Towards the time of new Finnish Wellbeing Services Counties

During the past year, we also participated in a tender organized by Kuntien Tiera for the delivery of a customer information and operational management system, whose customers will be in  the new Wellbeing Services Counties in the future. It ended with a positive outcome for us, and during the fall we have been developing product and service concepts in cooperation with Tiera and the first Wellbeing Services Counties. We are currently preparing for the first deployments, which will take place at the turn of 2022-2023. It has been interesting to follow quite closely and also to hear in practice what kind of job this is in terms of the Wellbeing Services Counties’ own operations, only in terms of IT and not to mention the organization of operational activities. Certainly, all parties are trying to do their best, but it may be that the “new world” is not totally ready in all respects when it starts operational activities.

British customers took RTC for the production use

We organized the first customer days in Birmingham in the summer. During the event, the purpose was to meet our customers, help them network with each other, present developed and under-development functionalities, and receive feedback on them. The positive thing about this event was that experts from all four clients (Leeds, Surrey, North Yorkshire and Leicestershire) were present. The discussion and interaction was active and for that a big thank you to those who participated in the event. RTC’s product development has since progressed to the stage where all UK customers have been put into production use during Autumn.

Finnish Customer Days in Tampere and online

In November, our yearly customer days were organized in Tampere and could also be accessed remotely online. It was the first time that all three events (Hilkka and Nappula training days and Fastroin& Kuntien Tiera’s mobile home care day) were organized at the same time during one day as so-called hybrid events. There were over 200 participants from different parts of Finland in the event and the arrangements were successful. A big thank you to our customers who participated in the event, our partners (Kuntien Tiera, Vivago, Tunstall and Procomp), the representatives of the myneva Group (Michael and Horst) and our external experts, who enriched our day with their own presentations. The coming year 2023 will be one to celebrate due to Fastroi’s 20-year anniversary, and hopefully next year we will set a new record in the number of participants in the customer days!

Customer satisfaction still at a high level

As a result of the customer satisfaction survey, we learned that our software is satisfied (12/2022, a total of 319 respondents to the Hilkka survey and 838 respondents to the Nappula survey). The 92.4 percent of Hilkka users are very satisfied or fairly satisfied with Hilkka, satisfaction has increased slightly from the previous year (91.1% in 2021). The 96.3 percent of Nappula users are very or fairly satisfied (97.6% in 2021) with the software. We will tell you more detailed results in the coming blog posts! 

I would like to thank all customers and our staff for the constructive feedback and for their cooperation and effective dialogue during 2022, without them we could not achieve these results!

In addition to the Christmas gift, all Fastronauts received one extra paid day off as a Christmas gift, like all employees of the myneva group.


We support Save the Children during Christmas 2022. Save the Children uses the donation to prevent social exclusion and helps poor families in Finland. 

Finally, I would like to wish everyone Merry Christmas and success for the New Year!

2022 CQC State of Care report for England

| Mika Sipilä, Sales Director

The 2022 Situation

The 2022 report details a health care system that is gridlocked and unable to operate effectively. Examples of this gridlock are situations like people in hospital waiting for a social care package so they can be discharged for someone waiting in an emergency department for a hospital bed so they can receive treatment.

It is also said that people who did receive care felt that it was good but this was less likely to be the case for people living in deprived areas, disabled people and people from ethnic minority groups.

It also talks about a growing dissatisfaction with health and care services both by the public and by staff. More staff than ever before are leaving health and social care and providers are finding it increasingly challenging to recruit, resulting in alarmingly high vacancy rates that have a direct impact on people’s care.

One of the biggest reasons the reports points to as being the root cause of the issues is the historical underinvestment and lack of sustained recognition and reward for the social care workforce.

Potential solutions

To solve the problems going forward, the report suggests more long term planning and investment with localities adopting approaches that combine the health and social care sectors. It also highlights the need for a national solution to the problem of vacancies within the social care sector with there being 165,000 at the time the report was written. 

From last year’s report to this one, the percentage of services in social care rated good or outstanding dropped by 1% from 85% to 84% (as of 31st July 2022) with the percentage point shifting from service rated Good to services rated Requires Improvement. 

In Domiciliary Care this change was mirrored with the split in different ratings (Last year’s report’s figures in brackets) Outstanding 5% (5%), Good 82% (83%), Requires Improvement 12% (11%) and Inadequate 1% (1%). Interestingly, the information shows an increase in the number of Domiciliary Care agencies from 7,795 to 8,518 whilst a decrease in Residential Homes 10,520 to 10,362 and Nursing Homes 4,189 to 4,115.

Conclusion

The theme from this report of the last few years continues, one of a broken system that is in desperate need of fixing. The significance of the symbiotic relationship the social and health care services have and how the performance of the NHS is impacted by lack of investment in social care is now becoming more apparent than ever. One of the UK’s recent prime ministers claimed in the speech as they left the job that they had fixed social care however this report has evidence to the contrary.

References –  Page 4, 5,114, 115 (https://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-10/20221024_stateofcare2122_print.pdf )
Reference: CareQuality Commission and State of Care Report 2022.

“Customers are a great source of energy for me”

| Mika Sipilä, Sales Director

Daniel Mikkola’s working day typically starts at his remote office at home after a busy morning with the family. During the day, he manages offers, contacts potential customers, gives product demonstrations online, and makes numerous phone calls.

  • Our workplace is very considerate of personal situations. I am happy my employer understands how family life may sometimes require extra flexibility. We also have the possibility to work remotely, which is great, Daniel says.

Daniel will soon have worked as Senior Sales Manager at Fastroi for five years. The versatile sales and marketing professional became interested in the combination of care sector and IT systems after a close family member fell ill.

  • My father was ill, and I increasingly looked after his affairs. I noticed the IT systems used in domiciliary care were underdeveloped. As I met and discussed with care workers almost daily, I started to think about how best to help the carers who looked after my dad.

Daniel started to search for jobs related to social and health sector IT, and he came across Fastroi on LinkedIn. The company was seeking a sales expert. Daniel found the company values matched his, and when the job was offered to him it was easy to accept it. His first day at work was a memorable one.

  • I started my job in November and arrived for the first meeting with my new employer at the Joensuu head office just in time to attend the company Christmas party. It was a fun way to get to know new colleagues, Daniel recalls.

Extensive expertise from a range of business sectors

Daniel Mikkola studied marketing at the Tampere University and had summer jobs mostly in sales. He worked in telemarketing as well as in furniture retail and clothes shops. During the final stages of his studies, he entered the insurance sector at OP-Pohjola’s B2B sales and customer service and stayed there for three years.

  • I found B2B sales really interesting and enjoyed working with people.

After the insurance sector, he worked in IT system sales for Oscar Software’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. During this time, Daniel learned a lot about IT and B2B sales.

  • I learnt that ERP systems are products of the future. I saw how hundreds of small- and-medium-sized businesses operate and I learned a huge amount about business processes.

Daniel has a broad interest in care sector technologies, from digital reforms in the social and health sector to practical challenges in health-care IT. He believes the field brings together caring and technological opportunities.

“Customers and easy-going colleagues make my day”

For Daniel, the best and most inspiring thing in work are his customers. He also appreciates the compact and relaxed sales team – it is always easy to contact a colleague for discussions or advice.

  • Trade shows and customer days are the highlights of my work as I get to meet customers and my colleagues at Fastroi during these events.

During his free time, Daniel recharges at the gym and enjoys watching films and reading books. The rest of his spare time is fully booked with family life, which runs smoothly thanks to his employer’s flexibility.

  • We have a culture of being very considerate of different situations in life. If my children are ill, there is always flexibility and it is easy to agree on work times, Daniel says.

Fastroi to attend the Care Show 2022

| Johanna Tanninen, Marketing and Communication Director

At the beginning of 2022 we had just helped Leeds City Council and North Yorkshire County Council to go live with our care management software product Real-Time Care. Progress has been made throughout the year with some of our other customers and during August and September Leicestershire County Council have gone live using RTC. In all of these projects we have been applying the principles we have adopted as part of us attaining ISO 27001 certification in 2019. 

myneva Group GmbH acquired Fastroi

In March we saw the acquisition of Fastroi into becoming part of the myneva Group. Since then Real Time Care has been selected by the group as their flagship rostering and scheduling product to be used right across Europe and trials are currently taking place in Germany with the software.

Our first UK Customer Day 

In June we held our first UK customer day where representatives from all of our clients were present along with some of the team from Finland. The event, held in Birmingham, was incredibly productive, giving people the opportunity to meet face to face, share ideas and best practices and also to hear about the latest developments in Real Time Care and what is planned for the future.

Fastroi won 12-million-euro contract with key ICT provider in Finland

In our native Finland we have also recently won a contract with a company called Kuntien Tiera, who work with local authorities across the country. They offer and develop high-quality and productized ICT services as well as digital and ICT solutions to support our customers’ smooth everyday life and operational development – for customers and residents. One of the other products we provide, Hilkka, is the main software that Tiera advice for use in any social care organisations and over time this may be replaced by Real-Time Care where appropriate.

Meet us in the E32 stand at the Care Show

This show is a fantastic time to come and meet with us in Birmingham and find out how we can help you digitise your care services! We can provide solutions to the problems faced especially by residential care, reablement and homecare services. So just drop by the stand for a chat, watch the presentations or even book a one on one meeting with us ahead of the event. You can find our contact details here. 

We look forward to meeting you at NEC, Birmingham!

White Paper: Why Should I Use Care Management Software?

New White Paper: Why Should I Use Care Management Software?

| Mika Sipilä, Sales Director

Better Tools, Better Care

This is obviously a very personal issue and so we didn’t want to simply write a ten page feature list. Now more than ever, working in care requires an emotional investment and the more time we spend doing the job, the more valuable our experience becomes. Alongside the extraordinary commitment and dedication of care staff, we must support them with the right tools. That’s where Fastroi comes in.  We want to give care companies the best tools to improve the level of care they provide. So instead of listing off a bunch of features, we have put together some interesting analogies and stories to try and explain some of the principles behind products like Fastroi’s Real-Time Care™.

Puzzles Books and Pictures

Managing care has historically been a very labour intensive activity. Staff rostering, scheduling and invoicing are just a few examples of admin tasks that can swallow up staff time and money. In one example, we look at how using the traditional pen and paper system for planning the staff rostas can be like a popular tea break puzzle. We also make the link between how in the absence of a single tool that keeps all of the activity within one secure location, staff needing to use different, unconnected, tools can seem like the work of an early 20th century novelty artist. Removing the complexity of the old pen and paper systems and providing staff with all of the information that they need within one easy to use tool is the only way to reduce mistakes and ensure that the care we provide is of a consistent quality. At the same time we look at how the systems make life easier for the care manager by giving them the ability to plan, report and monitor all of the activities that they are responsible for as well as creating a safe environment for everyone.

Compliance and Security

We also examine several aspects of care management software that are vital in today’s connected society, namely compliance and security. One factor is the way that we employ role based access control to ensure that both staff and client data is only available to those with the appropriate clearance to do so. This makes it simple to see who has done what and when. This kind of digital trail is just another way that we can ensure the safety of the service users and the care staff by ensuring that everything is recorded.

Reducing Failures in Care

Ensuring that both staff and those we care for are protected through the use of better tools is vital. By providing staff with a little more information, we can also make them feel more secure and remove the fear of the unknown. Doing this will also improve the morale of the workers which will lead to improvements in staff retention. The white paper should answer many of the questions that you might have if you are thinking about starting to use an electronic based care system. We would urge you to download it and get in contact with us once you have read it. The simple reality is that any Care Management Software is an improvement on the old pen and paper methods, but the benefits of Real-Time Care™ from Fastroi make it one of the best solutions on the market. You can download our latest white paper here.
fastroi ensuring level of service maintained

How Fastroi has been preparing for the coronavirus and ensuring our level of service in Finland

| Risto Jalovaara, CEO

Since most of Fastroi’s customers are located in Finland, it has been vital for our business that we have taken steps to protect both our customers and their customers. 

The coronavirus is spreading throughout Finland, and a large number of our customers work within the coronavirus risk groups such as the elderly or those with underlying medical conditions. In accordance with the directions of the Finnish government during their March and April press conferences,  we have complied with the new laws very carefully, since the health of our customers and their customers is our highest priority.

To ensure the health and safety of our customers, staff, stakeholders and partners, we have taken the following steps to reduce the risk of the virus spreading:

  • We have followed THL’s guidelines (The Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare) for coronavirus prevention in our offices.
  • We have complied with a two-week quarantine period for people who have returned from foreign travels.
  • At Fastroi, we have had the facility for remote working for several years and we are encouraging all our employees to work remotely until further notice.
  • We have restricted all work related travel as well as refraining from using public transport.
  • We have moved all of our customer meetings and training to remote online methods.
  • We will not be participating in domestic and foreign trade fairs or events during the Spring of 2020.
  • We are also limiting the number of visits to our premises for our partners and we are conducting meetings remotely.

Customer service and ensuring our level of service

Despite these exceptional circumstances, our customer services and software are currently both operating normally. The management, maintenance and operation of our services can all be controlled remotely, so the continuity of services can be guaranteed, even in cases where access to physical premises has been prohibited. Our continuity plan contains actions related to failure situations and other business discontinuities, so we have been prepared for this situation for some time.

We care – an hour of work a week to help

In accordance with our values – We Care. During the COVID-19 crisis, each Fastroi employee can use one hour of their working week, to help those in need. We will deal with this exceptional situation by acting together and responsibly.

Communication of the situation

We will monitor the situation on the websites of THL, the Finnish government and healthcare authorities, as well as through their press conferences. We are actively informing our customers about current issues by e-mail and on our blog. We are also organising many free webinars to our customers to help them to use our software in their daily work.

If you have any questions, please contact your contact person at Fastroi or send us an email at sales.uk@myneva.eu

Fastroi biking

The Fastroi team have started their journey around the world

| Johanna Tanninen, Marketing and Communication Director

The Fastroi team will travel ambitiously around the world, throughout the year, from 1.2.2020 to 31.1.2021. Our goal is to move our employees for more than 41,000 km in total, running, walking, biking, rowing, swimming, skating, skiing – all forms of exercise for whatever kilometers they can achieve.

This means that Fastroi employees should move together 3333km in a month.

Climate action and prosperity go hand in hand

At the same time, as we move around in something other than a car, we can also take part in action against climate change, as well as improving our fitness and work well-being.

At the end of our trip, there is still another carrot being dangled in front of us- Fastroi will donate €500 to charity if we reach our annual target. The amount will be chosen by the employees and donated to a charity organisation, which is doing significant climate change work.

Fastroi outdoors event

We care and learn new things

Our journey around the world is also based on our values. We care about our environment, we care about each other, and we try to  learn new things.

As part of this challenge, we will tour the world and present in our blog a number of places we would like to visit such as Manchester, Hawaii and Chicago. We will also have a tour of the places some of our employees come from and get local info and tips on interesting places and cultures.

Come join us and follow our blog during 2020!

Fastroi at expo

Fastroi to Attend Birmingham Care Expo – Expo is rescheluled until November

| Mika Sipilä, Sales Director

It is great to be returning to Birmingham and we are delighted to announce that we have two speaking slots this year. Please note that the expo organizer has informed recently that the show is rescheduled until 9th and 10th of November 2020. 

Seminar Topics

In preparation for this event, we have created two white papers to accompany the seminars. You can download both of them or pick up a paper copy from our stand.

The first presentation will be given by Jim Ward, Fastroi’s UK Head. His presentation will be “Improving the Quality of Social Care Through Technology and Lean Thinking.” The term “Quality of Care” often fails to address underlying poor processes that prevent care staff from providing high quality care. In this seminar, Jim will explore the difference between Quality of Care and the underlying Quality of the processes that often sit, unnoticed beneath them. He will examine how using the concept of Lean Thinking can be combined with an electronic care management system to bring about sustainable improvements in the way care is provided.

Our second speaker will be Mike Richards. Mike is the UK Sales Manager for Fastroi and he will be speaking about how Care Management Software can solve many of the problems associated with the Care industry. To do this, Mike will use stories to illustrate different aspects and scenarios where technology can make better use of resources which ultimately leads to a higher standard of care.

Both of the White Papers for each seminar are available for download here or you can find a paper copy at the the Fastroi stand (H1102).

Conclusion

2020 promises to be another amazing year for Fastroi, as we will be delivering our first major installation to the UK and continuing to grow our operation. This is a fantastic time to come and meet with us in Birmingham and find out how we can help you transform your care business. We can provide solutions to the problems faced by large and small organisations alike. So just drop by the stand for a chat, watch the presentations or even book a one on one meeting with us ahead of the event.

Let’s start our journey together in Birmingham!

Lean Thinking Within the Care Sector

Lean Thinking Within the Care Sector

| Mika Sipilä, Sales Director

Obviously if the company are still using pen and paper to manage their daily activities, then, they may be finding themselves at a disadvantage when compared to companies who have made the transition to digital tools such as Care Management Software, but it isn’t that simple.

Fine Tuning All Processes

As Fastroi have developed our Care Management Software over the last 15 years, we have realised that the process of running a care company is actually made up of two very different processes that exist together. The first is the care process which covers how you go about administering the care to people. This includes the things that need to be done, to whom, by whom, at what time and to what standard. These are vitally important to ensuring that the care people receive is of the highest quality, but this does not reflect the whole picture of what is happening within a care company.

After the 2nd World War, the Japanese car industry developed new techniques and tools to improve the quality of their processes. Many of these techniques became known as ‘Lean Thinking’ and can be found in businesses the world over. The ideas are quite simple, but the application requires a huge commitment from the whole organisation to continuous improvement.

Our latest White Paper takes a more in depth look at how some simple Lean ideas can be implemented within any care organisation with incredible results. Combining these ideas with Care Management Software such as Fastroi’s Real-Time Care™ will have the effect of breaking the false connection between inspections and quality care. We will look at some examples where a quality mindset has brought about some amazing results from delivering lunches to office workers in Mumbai to finding out how UPS saved a fortune on fuel and time by applying a simple rule when drivers are out on deliveries.

Build Quality into Everything You Do

Simply put, your business won’t need to worry about another CQC inspection as your quality levels will become focussed on constantly improving the way things are done by paying attention to every aspect of the process and not just ticking boxes and hoping for the best when the inspectors come.

We believe that Real-Time Care™ provides the tools that will allow the home care of the elderly to go beyond Outstanding.

Click Here to Download the White Paper: https://fastroi.com/en/lean-thinking-within-the-care-sector

Fastroi’s year review 2019

Fastroi’s year review 2019

| Risto Jalovaara, CEO

The first quarter also brought a happy surprise, as we won our first public sector tender in the UK. The City of Leeds competed for a work design and management solution for home care services, which will go live in 2020.

At about the same time, our first UK employee, our Sales Manager Mike Richards joined the team. With his family business experience, Mike strengthens our expertise in the social and health care industry in the UK. Mike has represented us at the social care events this past year and has done sales work with potential clients.

ISO 27001 security certification and service development

During the second quarter, we were in the final stages of ISO 27001 security and privacy issues. Our system and service offering was tested by both DNV and a UK based security testing company with an NHS approved testing certificate. We were well prepared for both audits, as all our employees had done their homework very well and the results were very positive. Of course, there is always something that can be improved upon, but that is something that works in our spirit of continuous improvement.

At the beginning of the third quarter, we underwent organizational changes aimed at improving and streamlining the provision of continuous services (helpdesk, training, integrations and operating services). In addition, we strengthened the development of our new product platform, both in-house and subcontracted employees. At this stage, most of the additional work resulting from the technological change at the beginning of the year had already been completed and normal development work was finished.

Customer satisfaction surveys and open feedback

In the early autumn, we also conducted an annual customer satisfaction survey for our products to our Finnish customers. A special thank you to all those who responded to the customer satisfaction survey! This year our Nappula software recorded the best performance in our company’s history, 96.4% of people would recommend Nappula to their colleagues. For RTC software, the corresponding result was 81.5%. Thank you for your very valuable open written feedback. In our opinion, some of the most important ones were immediately put to work, for example improving the usability of the RTC mobile application and the Nappula calendar module. There will be a webinar on the basic use of Nappula at the beginning of the year. Keep an eye out for upcoming releases over the next year so you can keep up to date with what’s new with the software.

Fastroi customer satisfaction survey 2020

Joensuu Entrepreneur of the Year Award

During the last quarter, this year saw another welcome surprise. Fastroi was chosen as the Entrepreneur of the Year 2019 in Joensuu. This is recognition from other entrepreneurs and we therefore value it highly as a company. Congratulations and thank you for all the memories!

Thanks for 2019 and success for the next year

We now have 65 Fastroi employees across four locations from the beginning of  2020. Our growth has continued in 2019, both in terms of headcount and revenue, and the financial statements will show the results for the financial year have developed over time.

Investments in the new product platform have been very significant in recent years and also in the upcoming years. However, they are an investment in a common future with our customers. We are in the process of creating a new product platform that should be able to serve our customers for at least 15 to 20 years from the time of implementation. That is why in early 2019, we decided to take another step forward in technical terms once again, even though it will affect product completion schedules.

In the coming year, we will strive to do our best to keep the development going forward in both the Nappula and Real-Time Care systems, both in terms of customer requests, usability and legal requirements. Stock archive subscriptions were introduced for health care already in 2019, and social stock archive subscriptions are expected to be available in the autumn of 2020, provided that the schedules provided by the authorities are accurate.

I would like to thank our customers, partners and especially our staff for the fact that we are still in existence after 16 years of operation, and we continue to work constructively and progressively with the Finnish social and health care information system and operating processes.

This year we have donated money for Christmas remembrance to € 2000 Mieli Mental Health Finland.

Finally, I wish you all a very peaceful and relaxing Christmas time with your loved ones and a successful New Year 2020!