Pegasus Health’s BeeFound platform, is making its debut into the North Island, extending its reach beyond Canterbury where the service was first launched.  A finalist in the NZ HIT Innovation Awards, BeeFound is an easy-to-use online platform that utilises algorithms to match general practice searches for locum cover to available qualified GP and Nurse Locums.

BeeFound was launched in June 2017 as Pegasus Health’s response to requests from their general practice members for support with workforce cover. Many general practices described the ongoing struggle of finding locum cover and asked Pegasus to help with a solution. Through on-going research, an online platform running in the UK caught the attention of the team, and communications commenced with the Scottish developer.

With licencing now available to Primary Health Organisations (PHOs) across New Zealand, Tu Ora Compass Health and Te Awakairangi in Wellington and Bay of Plenty’s Eastern Primary Health Alliance were quick to realise the benefits of the service for their practices and Locums and have now licenced BeeFound for use by their members. Pegasus Health is also fielding enquiries from PHOs across the country interested in how the service can support general practice workforce cover.  

Mark Liddle, Chief Operating Officer for Pegasus Health says what began as a means of ensuring the wellbeing of general practice staff, through staff cover, has now become a very popular matching service for both practices and locums.

“Practices can now just do one online search for staff without having to pay the fees per booking charged by locum agencies. They can set up preferred locums who will be shown first if they have availability. Locums can use BeeFound for free, pick which practices they’d like to work with and easily see and confirm bookings on-the-go,” says Mark.

To date, 2,619 GP and nurse locum sessions have been booked through BeeFound assisting up to 103 practices in Canterbury. “The service is handling more than 1,000 hours of locum bookings per month and that number is rapidly increasing” says Eirlys Beverley Stone, the Digital Platform Manager and who discovered the solution. “BeeFound will always be free for locums to use” she states and further “the feedback we’ve received from practices and locums has been extremely positive and they are finding the website easy to use.”

The BeeFound platform is available to GP, Nurse Practitioner, Registered Nurse, and Enrolled Nurse Locums. The advantage of a nationwide platform is that it provides opportunities for locums planning extended leave in other parts of the country to locum and work away from home and earn extra income while away.

With enquiries and interest continuing to come from locums, practices and PHO’s across the country BeeFound is increasingly becoming the ‘go to’ solution for work cover in primary health care.‍

For further inquires contact

:http://www.pegasus.health.nz‍