Staffing software StaffKnex hopes nurses are receptive to text talk

Will nurses’ lives get easier if they let their bosses send them text messages?

That’s the bet of a Northeast Ohio start-up, StaffKnex, which hopes its service will resonate in health care. Businesses of all types can use StaffKnex software to cut down on the time they use to manage work schedules.

In its latest wrinkle, StaffKnex (pronounced STAFF-ka-nex) blasts text messages to nurses’ phones, asking to fill open shifts. Ideally, nurses take the shifts by responding to the text messages.

This may be the year StaffKnex proves itself to venture capitalists who might invest in the future. Venture development organization JumpStart in January gave $350,000 to the company. StaffKnex also is awaiting word on an investment from the Ohio TechAngels Fund.

Most of the money would be used for sales and marketing development. Chief executive Mark Woodka wants the company to be ready for a round of traditional venture funding in 2010.

“As people get more accustomed to communicating via text messages it’s the right thing to do,” said Woodka, who expects to apply the software to other professions as well.

Text messaging isn’t the only feature of StaffKnex – it’s just the most modern feature. The software helps staffing agencies, nursing homes and hospital systems schedule staff members. It immediately warns employers when a nurse could start being paid for overtime.

Along with sending text messages, StaffKnex will send e-mail alerts and automated voice messages.

So, for example, if three nurses responded to a text message asking  for someone to fill a shift, the manager who assigns the work could see which of the nurses is closest to getting overtime.

Each feature is meant to cut down on the time managers spend finding replacement nurses rather than working with patients, while managing a workforce that’s often required by the state to maintain a certain level of around-the-clock staffing.

“There’s scheduling software that is part of much larger software packages,” said Lynn-Ann Gries, chief investment officer at JumpStart. “But what’s sort of ignored in that module is text messaging.”

Terry Schollmeier manages 50 nurses and aides at Evergreen Manor, a rehabilitation and nursing home in rural Montpelier, Ohio. “There’s a fairness to it,” he said. “No one can say they were never offered more work.”

Schollmeier said StaffKnex’s messaging system helped limit mandatory overtime when an employee couldn’t be found to take an open shift and a nurse from the previous shift had to stay. Evergreen also uses the messaging system to send out alerts about upcoming skill tests and certifications.

StaffKnex banks on people’s acceptance of text messaging. That’s not the case –- yet. Half of American mobile-phone owners will use text messaging in 2009, according to the market research firm IDC.

IDC predicts text-messaging will increase, particularly as mobile phone companies offer unlimited messaging with their service plans. But some mobile phone owners use plans that charge per text message or, more commonly,  fees after a certain number of incoming and outgoing messages. Both practices encourage users to limit the number of messages they receive.

Employees will resist work-related text-messaging if they’re charged for their messages, predicts Nancy Flynn, executive director of the e-Policy Institute, which advises companies on electronic communications policies.

“It really is an imposition, particularly in the current economic environment, for employees to pay to receive text messages from management,” said Flynn, who recently issued the second edition of her e-Policy Handbook.

Schollmeier found that some people don’t use text messages. About 40 of Evergreen’s nurses and aides had cell phones, but only 10 of them used text messages, he said. Staff members rely on the voice messaging feature to reach everyone, Schollmeier said.

Woodka said his company’s voice-message option is an alternative for employees who don’t have text messages. He also thinks that text messaging will grow rapidly in the United States, so lack of acceptance of the practice won’t be a major issue for his company’s growth.

“It’s getting harder to get a cell phone and cell-phone plan that doesn’t include text messaging,” Woodka said.

Woodka expects his company to have revenues of between $5 million and $6 million by 2011, providing it receives venture funding.

Leveraging software to streamline the health-care scheduling burden isn’t new. Companies like Staff Angel, which operates in places that include the Toledo area, offer services that automatically warn of overtime and match schedules to workers’ preferences.

But the process is clearly being refined.  New York’s ZocDoc, for example, is building a way for patients to find a doctor and then book an appointment online (it’s operating in New York City).