Digitisation
Digital transformation: one size does not fit all
Harvey Neve, director of digital data and technology at HC-One, explains how care homes can best implement digital technology in order to deliver an optimum experience for both colleagues and residents
Digital transformation has finally arrived in the adult social care sector, with the potential to reshape how care homes operate by streamlining workflows, boosting efficiency, improving the workplace, and enhancing the quality of care delivered to residents. However, the real success of this
transformation lies in ensuring that technology-driven solutions are practical, intuitive, and truly address the unique challenges faced by those delivering care on the frontline. The absence of the right tools for adult social care carers and nurses, home managers, and other care professionals can make an already demanding job even more difficult, and I have seen first-hand how important it is for innovative programmes to be developed and implemented collaboratively with our care home teams.
Lessons from other industries can now help our sector to skip a generation of technology, as we embrace the next wave of digital and data-driven change. The retail, finance, and manufacturing worlds have already undergone substantial digital transformations by adopting technologies like AI, real-time and predictive data analytics, and workflow automation to enhance their operations. As the care sector’s digital
transformation gathers pace, we must ensure that we take a lead from these other industries, listen to our colleagues, find practical solutions, and focus on purpose- built technologies all while empowering our colleagues to seamlessly transition to new ways of working.
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Empathy, support, and listening Digital transformation in the care sector, as everywhere, is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Every care home environment is different, and it is vital that we listen to colleagues working on the frontline to identify and describe in detail the specific challenges they face.
One major issue some of our colleagues
have revealed is being overwhelmed by new systems, especially when their own digital literacy may be relatively poor. Even before we introduced our digital systems, colleagues reported frustration with previous roll outs of technology when new processes made their jobs harder, adding to an already demanding workload. Ultimately, before any attempts are made to introduce new technology, we must first understand the concerns and potential barriers to ensure a swift and seamless
Digital technology should support and improve the delivery of care
transition at home level and across the organisation.
Being there for colleagues is a
foundational step. Listening to those on the front lines – those who know the challenges and realities of daily life in a care home – is the most valuable exercise that digital teams can do if they are seeking to deliver a successful digitally-enabled strategy. By staying close to the experiences of those who use the systems day in and day out, we can identify where technology can truly improve efficiency and alleviate stress rather than adding to it. Following this initial fact-finding approach, it is essential that we craft a concrete support structure and team that can provide wrap-around assistance when things go wrong or when colleagues need help. This is a critical aspect of any digital implementation strategy, and to achieve this, our DDaT (digital data and technology) team supports all colleagues in all our care homes, main office, and regionally based teams with all digital, data, and technology- related requests and needs.
The scale is significant for HC-One, with
www.thecarehomeenvironment.com May 2025
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