Over 30,000 care home workers across the UK are using cloud-based technology to save time and improve patient care.
Person Centred Software has reached its 1,000th care home milestone and says its mobile application is changing the way frontline care is delivered.
Health and social care has been notoriously slow to move away from paper-based documentation. Even care providers that adopted desktop computers, care staff would still write up everything using words at the end of their shift; words which were subject to interpretation, were inconsistent and unmeasurable. The use of desktop computers also delivered minimal time savings since staff had to walk back and forth to a device throughout the day to record care.
“It became apparent that whilst administration software helps care providers’ efficiency, it doesn’t actually help those delivering care. Social care really only exists because of these people, so we decided to focus on improving the lives of the care staff users,” said Jonathan Papworth, co-founder and director of Person Centred Software.
Care homes of all sizes, from single homes through to large national groups are using the mobile software to save at least one hour a day on administration, compared to paper systems. Carers evidence care in real-time, ensuring the quality of information is both accurate and detailed and most importantly, freeing up time to do the actual caring.
Staff use an icon-based application on a handheld device throughout their shift which limits the need for typing – ideal for non-native speakers of English, those with dyslexia and non-IT literate people.
The system drives communication from carer to nurse when important interventions are needed; it enhances nurse to carer communication with detailed care plans, care routines and shift handover notes; and it also ensures carer to carer communication with details of a resident’s preferences, and alerts for overdue care as well as happiness indicators.
Managers also save time on care plan reviews and safeguarding with dashboards that deliver all the information they need to their fingertips. Care homes report that 20 minutes is even saved on admissions to hospital since up-to-date information can be automatically collated into a hospital pack.
Papworth added: “As part of this cloud-based system we are able to deliver a real-time social network called Relatives Gateway. It allows everyone involved with a resident – family, friends and additional care providers – to have full visibility and engage in that person’s care. All this added together makes a unique solution to a very simple objective: to improve the life of everyone involved in social care.”
Mobile Care Monitoring pricing is tailored to each care home as it is based on the number of users.