Achieving Excellence in Domiciliary Care
Trends in Modern Domiciliary Care and the Need for Advanced Software Solutions:
In recent years there has been a significant increase in the number of individuals that require domiciliary care. This trend looks set to continue with the Department of Health & Social Care in the UK predicting that 57% more adults aged 65 and over in England will require care in 2038 compared to 2018.
This increased demand has highlighted the need for domiciliary care management software as care providers are facing more and more pressure to provide the best possible standard of care with fewer resources.
As a result, many care providers have pivoted from traditional or paper-based care management methods towards advanced software solutions.
Domiciliary care management software has a wide range of functionality to assist carers in providing a high standard of care as it enables them to have all the information they need at their fingertips.
This means that they no longer have to focus on remembering large volumes of information and can instead redirect their full focus on doing what they do best, providing excellent care to their service users.
The Importance of Excellence in Domiciliary Care:
One of the most important things to individuals receiving domiciliary care is the ability to remain in their own homes. Being in familiar surroundings, can help to maintain a certain level of independence they otherwise wouldn’t achieve if they were in a residential care facility.
Being in their own home allows for service users to maintain their daily routines, meaning they can get up at their preferred times, eat the foods they like, and do the daily activities they enjoy, which ultimately encourages them to take on a more active role in their care leading to better care outcomes.
Additionally, when service users receive care from a team of carers in a familiar location, such as their own home, they build a deep sense of trust with the care team where they know they are going to receive excellent care, ultimately increasing their satisfaction with the service and improving their care outcomes.
As the number of service users continues to increase, so does the administrative burden faced by care providers, resulting in operational efficiency becoming one of the most critical aspects of care provision.
Once the number of service users hits a certain size, it becomes increasingly difficult for administrative staff to manually create and distribute schedules, produce new care plans, and record key compliance indicators.
Moreover, as care staff are providing care to multiple service users in their own home, it’s crucial that they remain fully compliant with national care standards, such as HIQA regulations in Ireland and CQC and the Care Inspectorate regulations in the UK.
To achieve excellence in domiciliary care, it is fundamental that care providers implement a domiciliary care management software to reduce the administrative burden they face by streamlining the creation and distribution of care plans, rosters and schedules whilst remaining fully compliant with regulatory standards.
Challenges Faced by Domiciliary Care Providers:
With growing demand and a continuously increasing waiting list, care providers may find it difficult to deliver care that is compliant with the various regulatory standards without a robust care management software.
As domiciliary care providers typically visit multiple locations to provide care for service users, one of the biggest challenges they face is ensuring that there’s adequate buffer time between calls to allow them time to travel from one client to another.
Care providers may not have access to their own private vehicle so may need to rely on public transport to get them from client to client, which can result in them being late or even missing a shift if there’s delays caused by traffic, or they need to coordinate multiple transfers to reach their destination.
Moreover, if a service user is living in a rural location, carers without access to their own private vehicle may find it difficult to visit the client and which significantly reduces the roster of carers who can deliver care to the service users.
Another major challenge faced by domiciliary care providers is the high rate of staff turnover caused by limited budgets, long hours, and often difficult working conditions.
A high rate of staff turnover can have a disastrous knock-on effect for service users as care coordinators may not have enough staff with the correct training to assign coverage and as a result, the service user may not receive the care they require.
As some individuals in receipt of domiciliary care services have complex care requirements, they may require more than one carer to provide care at any given time.
This can be challenging for care coordinators as some cases require carers to have specialist training to carry out certain aspects of care plans and as a result, it can be difficult to find coverage if carers do not have sufficient specialist training.
Traditional scheduling methods are a very manual process that requires a significant time investment from care coordinators as they have to manually write and print each carers schedule and distribute them to their staff.
Additionally, if a carer calls in sick or is unable to attend a client, care coordinators have to manually re-write, print and distribute the schedules again, sometimes with just mere minutes notice.
Furthermore, if there are changes made to a service users’ care plan, the service users’ family isn’t always informed which can significantly damage the trust between their family and their care providers.
If a carer is late or misses a visit with a client it can have potentially life-threatening implications for the service user, as they may require time sensitive medication or require 24/7 assistance.
Moreover, if carers aren’t on time for their next shift or miss a shift, the previous carer will have to wait until someone turns up to provide coverage which can have a knock-on effect for service users and their families.
Another major challenge facing domiciliary care providers is the tremendous amount of pressure they face to remember large amounts of data regarding multiple service users.
As such, there’s a high likelihood that the care providers will forget key information about the service users which increases the gaps in care outcomes.
Additionally, if an incident occurs that requires emergency assistance, care providers have to manually pass on all the key information regarding the service user, however, they may forget key information or there may be too much information to provide a clear overview of the service users’ care requirements, further increasing gaps in care provision.
How Software Solutions Address These Challenges:
Implementing a domiciliary care management software can help address these challenges in several ways, one of which being with advanced geofencing functionality.
Geofencing prevents carers from clocking-in to their shift when they are outside of a certain radius from the service users’ home, ensuring that they are where they are when they say they are.
As a result, service user’s and their families have an increased level of trust with their care providers which encourages them to be more engaged with the care being provided and ultimately reduces the gaps in care provision.
Domiciliary care management software also brings with it extensive digital care planning functionality, which enables carers to create templated care plans that are highly configurable, which significantly reduces the time it takes for carers to create and make changes to a service users care plans.
Moreover, digital care plans are stored centrally, meaning carers no longer have to remember large amounts of data to provide a high quality of care.
As a result, care providers are under significantly less pressure, meaning they are better equipped to do what they do best, providing excellent care.
The advanced scheduling and rostering functionality within domiciliary care management software also helps to minimise the challenges faced by care staff by providing a robust set of tools to assist them when creating, updating, and distributing weekly schedules.
One of the main tools helping them achieve this is the wallchart functionality. A wallchart provides a complete overview of carers weekly schedules and can be updated at a moment’s notice thanks to its drag and drop capabilities, allowing care coordinators to make instant changes to a carers schedule, and as they are stored centrally within care plans, all key stakeholders in the service users care provision are immediately notified as soon as the change is made.
When a change needs to be made to a carers schedule, the wallchart will provide care coordinators with a list of the most suitable coverage based on a number of criteria, such as distance to the client, methods of transport, and completed trainings to name just a few.
Wallcharts also come equipped with ‘tag scheduling’ functionality, which allows care coordinators to create ‘tags’ that they can then associate with the service user based on their care requirements whilst also being able to create and associate corresponding training tags with care staff.
These tags are then used to assign the most suitable carer to the service user based on their care requirements and the trainings the carer has completed.
“We really like that the system provides a comprehensive view of both carers and clients. With the system capability for immediate updates and managerial oversight, operations have become more efficient and accurate.” – David Wallace, Director of Strategy and Operations, Hibernia Home Care.
Furthermore, care coordinators also have the ability to create templated schedules that can be duplicated and edited with ease.
This significantly reduces the administrative burden faced by admin staff as they can create schedules weeks in advance and can easily make changes on the go with just a few taps.
Domiciliary care software also allows coordinators to optimise carers ‘run’ schedules in a way that’s the most efficient for the carer, ensuring that the service user receives the correct care at the correct time.
This significantly reduces the likelihood of a service user not being administered time sensitive medication or missing a time sensitive treatment as the care providers have sufficient buffer time between calls to ensure they reach their next client in a timely manner.
When a carer is providing care to the service users on their run, they are prompted to perform key care deliverables ensuring they are delivered at the correct time and recorded accordingly.
This data can automatically be fed into the auditing and reporting functionality of your domiciliary care management software, which can then be used to ensure the care provided is fully compliant with national standards.
Looking to the Future and Embracing Excellence in Domiciliary Care:
Due to the growing number of individuals in receipt of domiciliary care, traditional methods of care provision are becoming increasingly unsustainable, emphasising the need for care providers to pivot away from traditional methods of care provision towards more advanced methods.
As the number of individuals in receipt of domiciliary care continues to grow, it’s becoming increasingly important that all care provided is fully compliant with national regulations, which has led to the emergence of many domiciliary care software’s, such as ours.
Furthermore, domiciliary care management software has a wide range of functionality designed to streamline care planning and delivery, ensuring service users receive a high standard of care whilst simultaneously increasing staff satisfaction as care providers are no longer required to memorise large chunks of information about a client, and can instead focus on doing what they do best, provide excellent care.
The increased requirement for operational efficiency, staff satisfaction, and most importantly personalised care that is fully compliant with national regulations, has led to us offering cutting-edge functionality such as:
- Manage medication stock cabinets for all users, ensuring no medication administration is missed with customisable due/late reminders and alerts,
- A centralised document repository suite with a full library of pre-configured reports which are highly customisable and downloadable with a full audit trail, and
- Full self-service ability for care providers to manage their payslips, annual leave, sick leave, and any additional leave required, directly from their own mobile phone.
Ready to revolutionise your domiciliary care offerings? Book a demo with OneTouch Health to see how you can streamline your domiciliary care provision.