Last week, we attended yet another fantastic Dorset Care Conference, hosted by Care Management Matters at the Lighthouse in Poole. This time, we were invited to present on the role of digital in modern care delivery.

The fact that so many people joined us in the discussion was testament to the event organisers, but also showed that more and more care providers are considering how technology can help them improve the way they plan, record and report care.

Our care consultant, Luis Rela, shared some useful tips on how to approach the digital transformation process and how change management is key; while Juliana Jeffery from Luxury Care Group talked about her experience of using the Nourish system in her care home and how to overcome challenges.

The floor was obviously open for questions at the end, of which there were many. Here, we’ve shared a few of them.

Understandably, a banker in the audience wanted to know about the return on investment of going digital in care. Luis explained that there are both tangible and intangible benefits, and that care providers should think about the bigger picture when considering investing in a digital care management system:

“The tangible benefits are easier to define, of course. You only need to think about the paper you will no longer need to print, store, archive and shred to understand how those costs can be reduced over time.

“There are then intangible benefits such as time saved by recording notes digitally. Many of our care providers say they save at least one hour per carer each day because they don’t have to spend that time at the end of a shift writing notes and instead, record as they go. For some care organisations, this leads to a cut in the number of staff needed on each shift. However, what we find is that care providers instead maintain staff levels to increase the available one-on-one care for residents.

“In fact, one provider said that this decision led to them achieving an outstanding rating with CQC across three of the homes in the group.”

Juliana added: “There is also less time needed to get new or agency staff up to date with individual care plans and they have the time to get to know and spend time with that resident instead.”

So digital transformation is not primarily about driving costs down but improving the amount and quality of care that can be provided.

We were joined in the room by care providers of varying sizes, and many of them wanted to know how much time it takes to go from paper notes and care plans to digital ones.

Luis said: “Typically, it takes two months and we break down the transfer into stages; starting with daily notes and then care plans. However, this really depends on the size of the care home and whether it’s part of a group. If you take Luxury Care for example, they are still going through the process but that’s because they are doing one care home at a time. It also depends on whether we are developing unique features that work with their service. In one instance, a provider wanted to amend the digital care plan template to mirror that of the paper one, so we would do that first.”

Another member of the audience, who is already using Nourish in their care service, commented: “You could argue that there is never an end date once you are using an electronic care management system because you are always evolving and innovating. Every day we are learning something new and get more confident with the system, so every time we have a new idea, we integrate that into our process.”

Going digital obviously involves the use of physical handsets and electronic devices and some members of the audience were concerned that the responsibility of purchasing such equipment would be left to them.

As part of the Nourish service, we provide tablets for managers; handheld devices similar to Smart Phones for carers; and secure log-ins to our cloud-based system which can also be accessed from desktop. The number of devices needed will usually be the same amount of people you will have on each shift. The user will keep the device for the full duration of a shift, log out and handover to the carer taking over the next shift. Each member of the care team has their own log in with set permissions that have been pre-agreed and there are also log ins for agency workers.

Luis explained why this is the best way forward for everyone: “Care providers do not need the added pressure of having to find and purchase their own compatible devices and set them up. Because our software is completely adaptable to the care you provide, we get these ready for you prior to your training. We also have a dedicated technical support team on hand to help you with any queries.”

During her part of the presentation, Juliana explained how having a digital care management system in place had made communication between members of the care teams much easier and members of the audience wanted her to expand on that.

“Because it’s as easy as using Facebook and the device is with them all the time, it’s great for communicating important messages between members of the care team,” said Juliana. “Everyone can see and send messages through Nourish and handovers are now seamless. It’s been brilliant for ensuring everyone is informed immediately. For example, we also use this system to make sure we notify everyone of quality assurance audit results, which would otherwise have been left for meetings. Now everyone feels involved.”

Juliana also highlighted the added benefits of using these devices when recording notes: “We have carers who are not confident in writing notes or perhaps English isn’t their first language, so they love the speech dictation feature. As you speak, it records what you say.”

If you have any questions about the role of digital in modern care delivery and would like to find out how your care service can benefit, please give our team a call on 02380 002288.

If you work in care you will probably spend a great deal of time carefully planning and organising your care plans and pathways. So how do you know if your care plans are comprehensive enough to not only pass a regulatory inspection, but actively help those in your care receive effective support?

In order to help care providers avoid the many pitfalls that come with poor care plans, we’ve compiled a list of the top 12 mistakes poor care plans make and a subsequent list of methods you can use to avoid making them and ensure you always use effective care plans.

Each of the points we’ve made above has its own set of risks and requirements which all lead to a lower quality of care, but with the right approach, technology and techniques, care plans can be designed to avoid all of these pitfalls entirely.

Below we’ve detailed the best ways we’ve found to overcome these care plan pitfalls and how you can navigate through them yourself:

If you’d like to find out more about how Nourish can help you improve your care planning and avoid some of the pitfalls we’ve discussed above, then give us a call on 02380 002 288, get in touch with the team or book a demo.

Let’s face it, when you work in care there can seem to be an overwhelming number of different buzzwords, jargon and acronyms involved in the information you get given. This is especially true when you look at the practices involved with providing people with good quality care. Today we’re going to be looking into integrated person-centred care planning – we’ll help you to demystify the term and try to encourage you to adopt the practices it involves into your care provision.

To begin with we’ll be looking at what “person-centred” actually means in regards to care. Simply put, it’s a shortened way of expressing the creation of a series of activities aligned to specifically cater for a person and their requirements. In a way it’s how you choose to culminate your care pathways & activities in a bespoke manner to provide someone with actions, activities and results that are focused totally on the individual. 

Person-centred, applies to care planning, when you take into account the clinical, holistic, desires, needs and wants of person when creating their care plans. It doesn’t stop there, however and in order to be truly person-centred, care plans must be created collaboratively with the person in control of the care interventions they want to accept, how they wish to receive them and designed to enable the person at every opportunity.

Here’s where things get a bit trickier. In order to provide integrated person-centred care planning, care professionals from all areas need to work together in order to ensure that the person in care has a seamless provision of their care, no matter the setting. When you have a person whose care requires the interventions from a variety of different social care and healthcare organisations, this can become fairly complex and has only realistically been achievable with the introduction of electronic health records and electronic care planning systems.

Here at Nourish we focus firmly on empowering person-centred care for those who provide and are in care. You can read more about our vision in our recent article on “framing personhood to manage frailty, needs and wants” from our founder Nuno Almeida. It’s why we’ve designed the Nourish system from the ground up to help enable people to receive tailored care and empower carers to do just that.

Nourish’s care planning system helps care workers, care teams, care managers and senior care providers with person-centred care planning by:

Our team of experts are always happy to help talk through how the Nourish system empowers care teams and care providers – talk to us today to find out more.

At Nourish there are a number of principles that guide our work. Firstly we understand the importance of planning in care, which is why we put care plans at the heart of what we do. Establishing a care plan is key to providing truly personalised care, so we designed Nourish to make that process as smooth as possible.

No two care settings are ever the same, which is why Nourish is flexible and customisable. Our approach is to tailor Nourish to work for care teams, not the other way round. So if a care team has well-established care plans that they are already using, we work with the team to take those care plans online with Nourish – creating the same order that carers are used to. Other settings may prefer to use Nourish care plan templates and then customise them to the care they provide – from nursing care to dementia care to domiciliary care to learning disabilities.

Secondly we use clear, user-friendly design to allow Nourish to fit into carers’ daily work. Care plans can be set up to generate tasks on a daily schedule – for example, if part of a person’s care plan is to monitor a person’s weight loss, daily tasks can be set on the timeline to check nutrition and food intake. Carers have told us time and again that the two hours they used to spend at the end of a shift on paperwork has simply gone, because by the time the shift has finished they have already made all the notes they need to.

Thirdly, care is provided not by a single person, but by a circle of care. Within a residential setting, this may involve the care team, visiting medical staff and family. In home care settings, friends and neighbours may also play a role. With Nourish, notes can easily be made by each person providing care. That information is then stored and organised in the care plan logs in a clear way so that others can access it when they need to.

With all this in place, generating reports no longer involves spending hours retrieving files from the shelves but can be done with just a few clicks, before, after or even during a CQC inspection if required. Care plans can easily be reviewed and audited, which is also vital when it comes to inspection. Reviews may be scheduled, but care teams also have the flexibility to react to changes in a person’s condition which may trigger the need for a care plan review.

Care requires both consistency and flexibility. We designed Nourish to support those needs. Which means care teams can get on with doing what they do best – provide the real, human, compassionate care that enables the people they care for to enjoy the best quality of life possible.