TECHNOLOGY AND SOFTWARE
Going Digital During a Pandemic
Soſtware provider Log my Care shares with us the story of an apprehensive care home manager who decided to take the plunge to go digital during the COVID-19 pandemic, with help from Log my Care’s care management platform.
Thinking about going digital but not sure if now is the right time?
Kelly Gallimore, the registered manager at Primrose Care Home in Houghton le Spring, thinks now is as good a time as any.
Kelly decided to move her 25-bed care service onto electronic care management in October 2020. She says if her team can go digital in the middle of a pandemic, so can anyone.
Kelly said: “At first, I didn’t really know if we should go digital. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into. Everyone was really apprehensive at first. But I downloaded the app, which was just like downloading any app on my iPhone, and everything aſter was as simple as that.”
Kelly ordered smartphones for her carers to use and uploaded the Carer App once they arrived. She slowly began training her team to use the app and made use of Log my Care’s free demo and training sessions.
Immediately, she began to see improvement in the accuracy of her staff’s note-taking and in the amount of time saved.
Kelly said: “The app is fantastic. The carers can reach into their pocket, pull out their phone, and log the care right then and there. They don’t have to leave the room to go to a computer and type it up or write it down on paper. The ease of recording is what I’m most pleased about. Things aren’t being forgotten because they can log care immediately.”
Going digital has also made reporting incidents and dealing with external groups a lot easier at the home, too.
“We had an incident last week and I was at home when it happened. But I had all the information in front of me which I could then send over to Safeguarding and to the social worker. It saved me a lot of time because previously I would have to scan or photocopy the care plans, upload them, send them
over...this system is so valuable. It normally would’ve taken me a good few days, but this online care planning soſtware saved so much time,” Kelly continued.
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Primrose Care Home hasn’t had an inspection from the CQC since they’ve gone digital, but Kelly expects that the new soſtware will also help her prepare for and complete inspections much more easily.
“When you have to audit incidents and accidents as a manager, there’s a chance that bits of paper can go missing or be mislaid. When I press a button now, everything is there for me to view. It’s so much easier, I don’t have to go looking for things or read through people’s daily notes because it’s all right there,” said Kelly.
Electronic care planning can seem intimidating to services that have never known anything other than paper-based systems. Kelly’s team was nervous to change the way they recorded care but soon discovered how user-friendly the Log my Care soſtware is. Log my Care has built its Carer App so that it is as simple and clear as possible - even the biggest technophobe will be able to figure it out within a day of downloading the app and having a play around.
Kelly’s team took the plunge in the middle of a pandemic and managed to sort everything out within a month and a half of creating an account. Her advice to other managers who may be on the fence about going digital is clear: “Just do it!”
“Just do it, dig in! Give yourself a good week to get to grips with it, but if I can do it in the middle of a global pandemic then you can do it at any point too. I’d be gutted if for whatever reason we had to go back to paper systems. It’s 100% worth it and I can’t imagine going back to paper,” concluded Kelly.
You can go digital today using the award-winning Log my Care soſtware. The best part? It’s totally free. All you have to do is head over to
logmycare.co.uk/get-started to sign up for a free account. You’ll be up and running in no time (and you won’t have to break the bank to do it!)
https://logmycare.co.uk www.tomorrowscare.co.uk
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