Digital care records
Staff satisfaction People do not come into the care sector to do admin and paperwork. Administrative tasks, whether small or big, or even just finding the right information, can get in the way of providing care and spending meaningful time with residents. Digital care records remove chunks of admin. They free up care workers to focus on caring for residents. Improving data accuracy and workflow also reduces stress caused by not knowing if information is correct, or if flagged concerns are being seen and addressed by managers or colleagues.
This all has a positive impact on staff satisfaction and can even go some way to helping you recruit and retain staff, although, as we all know, this challenge is caused by lots of other factors, too.
Actionable insights When using digital records, your care service is constantly, automatically building up a repository of data, on everything from care needs, to incidents, falls and outcomes, and more. This data can then be rendered into dashboards and reports that you can use to make more informed decisions. You can harness this data to uncover patterns, trends, and even causes that would otherwise remain invisible or only surface much later – typically after they some sort of adverse event.
Integrated health and care A key driver behind the push to digital records is the desire for greater integration of local health and care services. In order for this to be a reality, information needs to be easily transferable or directly accessible between different health and care services. Without digitised records, this is unfeasible or at least impractical.
How to choose a system that works for you Your budget, existing experience of using a certain system, different pricing models, and a wide range of other factors will all influence which system is right for you. However, there are some universal guidelines that all should follow in order to select a digital care record system that delivers the improvements you are aiming for. These have been crafted with the help
of two key groups, namely residential care providers, who have tried, failed, tried again, and succeeded in implementing digital care records, and our expert on-boarding team, who have implemented digital care records in thousands of residential care services.
May 2023
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com
Make use of all perspectives within your organisation You will have a much better chance of choosing the right system if you bring people from across your organisation into the selection process. Do not take a top- down only approach. A representative from your care workers,
a registered manager, and other roles, will all be able to see different benefits and limitations from each system you are evaluating. Care providers I have spoken to recommend bringing together a working group with people from different roles that will speak frankly. Together, decide on a wish list of your top priorities for your new system. The trick here is clarity and simplicity,
you do not want to engage in an unnecessarily time consuming and costly procurement process. Instead, you need a list of your key priorities for what a system must have or be able to do. Also, include any red flags that you all feel would make the system a very bad fit. Your wish list may grow a little as you view different systems and learn more, but when it comes to decision time you should check each potential supplier against the same criteria.
Integration When we talk about integration in software, we mean the ability for information to be shared automatically between two systems.
In residential care, integration between
your care planning and medication management software is crucial. Even if you are not looking to digitise your medicines processes currently, you probably will in the future, and at that point the importance of integration will hit home. See the quote below from Richard Hawes, who at the time was CEO of Elizabeth Finn Homes Ltd. Elizabeth Finn were selected as a case study by NHSX and Digital Social Care, to help fellow care providers select and implement digital care records successfully: “The one massive requirement that
emerged from our working groups was that any electronic records system and medicine management system needed to dovetail together. They needed that seamless integration. “It was our carers and managers who were
most adamant about this, and when you think about the additional duplication of data entry and the potential for errors that using two separate systems create, they were and are absolutely correct to insist on an integrated system. “Our staff were saying they didn’t want to
have to put residents’ details in half a dozen different places, we want to put it in once. That was our number one requirement and that came directly from our care staff.” Richard highlights why digital care
record and medication management software integration is so important.
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