Harry Wu is the recipient of the 2018-19 Award for Innovation – one of the highest honours of Circle of Care’s employee recognition program, Champions of Care.
Uncovering Information through Visual Technology
When Harry Wu comes into the office each morning, he looks forward to the problem solving that he will inevitably be required to do that day. His role as Transportation Supervisor for the iRIDE program involves a lot of moving pieces.
Every day there are over 46 iRIDE vehicles on the road, travelling all over the north Toronto region and to the downtown hospitals. Harry oversees the team of transportation schedulers who are responsible for handling client schedules and issues for more than 3,000 clients, as well as providing support to partner providers.
“There’s a lot going on,” says Harry. “So our department works in a really fast-paced environment!”
Harry started working at Circle of Care five years ago, as a transportation scheduler and worked his way up to the position of Transportation Supervisor last year. “I was really excited for the step up,” says Harry. “I knew that it would be a challenging role that I was going to be undertaking, but I could see the potential for improving the program, and I knew that I could help out the team.”
Using technology to serve more clients
One of the biggest projects that Harry has helped to bring to fruition has been building a visual tool to track important information within the iRIDE program. He learned Power BI from scratch and then applied the business analytics program to his new tool, dubbed the ‘BI Dashboard.’
The software that the iRIDE staff uses to schedule rides tracks a lot of valuable information, but before Harry built the BI Dashboard, that information was hidden.
“As a result of the BI Dashboard, we can now find ways to improve services, find efficiencies, and serve more clients,” says Maria Campo, Manager, Client Services – Enhanced Community Supports.
The new dashboard was also the springboard to getting iRIDE partner providers to agree to a full ride-sharing program. Ride sharing involves sharing clients amongst partner providers, and also sharing vehicles. Harry and Maria presented the data they had collected through the dashboard to show our partner providers that there were major benefits to signing onto the ride-sharing program.
“Their biggest worry was that agreeing to schedule rides with partner agencies would mean losing some of their clients and their rides. We were able to show them that this wasn’t the case, and that, in fact, that everyone would be able to accommodate more clients through the program,” says Harry.
Celebrated for his contributions to innovation
In May 2019, Harry was honoured with the Champions of Care Award for Innovation. The Award for Innovation is presented to an employee who is driven to finding better solutions in everything they do. The winner challenges conventional thinking to find solutions that result in new approaches to current issues.
“Receiving recognition through the Champions of Care program helps us all feel engaged and motivated at work. Receiving this special award has been an honour,” says Harry.
