What to look for in care home & social care software
- Categories: Digital Transformation
Joe Webber
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Care home software
Care home software is playing a vital role in helping providers in any care setting (Domiciliary, Residential and Nursing) save time and money. The UK government has even advised care providers to consider how they can use technology to help prevent and control infections, and to keep residents connected with family and friends. Going digital helps streamline internal processes and ensures residents get the highest quality of person-centred care.
If integrated successfully, care homes can see a wealth of benefits from digitalising their care records and leveraging software and technology to improve communication, patient care and data storage. With a variety of solutions available, it can be an overwhelming process trying to decide which care home software is best for your specific circumstances. Price ranges can vary dramatically, and it can be hard to understand if certain features are worthwhile or not.
We’ve put this handy guide together to help showcase what to look for in care home software. If you have any questions or want to learn more, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our friendly team here at CareDocs, who can help you get started. We’ve also put together this article to walk you through the CareDocs journey, and how we help you transition.
When buying and integrating software into a care home (or any social and nursing care setting), the following guidelines will help ensure it delivers everything you want.
1. Focus on benefits
When buying any product, focusing on the benefits as opposed to the features will help you understand what kind of value it will offer. Products can list advanced and impressive-sounding features, but if these don’t contribute to the end desires of what you need the care management software for, it shouldn’t sway your decision.
The first step in buying any products for your care home should be the extent to which they solve a problem. After prioritising your needs, you are more easily able to make an informed decision about which benefits meet the needs of your care home. Digital record keeping, for example, helps save care workers’ time, which is a benefit for all care homes.
2. Ease of use
It’s important that any care management software works for the people using it day-to-day. If it involves a steep learning curve or being an IT expert to use it, people might not be able to use it to its full potential, minimising the overall benefit.
Care home software should be intuitive to use. Nurses and care home staff should be able to understand how to navigate easily and understand how it benefits them. Many software providers will offer free trials or demos and during these opportunities, which is a perfect opportunity to see whether it’s right for you and your team.
3. Security
The data stored and managed by care homes is both sensitive and personal. Extra care should be taken to ensure this data is safe and secure. Data breaches or a loss of data can have detrimental effects on care homes and their residents. With CareDocs you can backup your work, either manually or automatically using the internet. It’s also encrypted, so only staff with access to the software can log into the system using a secure password linked to a personal profile.
General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) principles for social care providers are mandatory, so care management software that has security and data protection embedded into its core functionality, means care homes are assisted in adhering to GDPR principles by simply using GDPR-compliant software.
4. Person-centred care
We understand how important the benefits and values of person-centred care is. That’s why the resident is at the heart of our software. Quality software will support you with identifying and recording the individual needs of your residents, making care planning comprehensive. Software that limits this could mean that individuals residing in care homes fail to enjoy the benefits of person-centred care planning, resulting in non-compliance with CQC. The ability to customise care plans in your software will allow you to have the flexibility to provide responsive care.
5. Improve record keeping
Record keeping is a top priority for those working in care homes. Software that makes recording, analysing and storing resident information easy and efficient offers huge benefits. Having information that can be viewed, printed and shared quickly means those working in care homes can spend less time on admin, and more time on resident care.
6. Real-time monitoring
Having alerts and real-time monitoring which highlight if any data is missing or out of date is very important to help support workers during busy periods and helping your setting comply with CQC regulations. Ensuring the latest information is always available within the system allows you to make informed decisions about resident care and that new developments are responded to promptly.
7. Sharing
In today’s social care environment, residents in a care home are likely to use various additional health services, such as doctors, occupational therapists or district nursing teams. Being able to easily and effectively share and communicate important patient information with their consent is a huge benefit that software and digitalising care records can offer. You can print multiple documents, send files digitally or share live care updates remotely using services like CareDocs Connect.
Care home software and CareDocs
For more information about how CareDocs can make a difference for your care home, call us on 0330 056 3333 or email us at sales@caredocs.co.uk.
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Joe Webber
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