“Care plans are how we plan and agree on how a resident’s health and social needs are met, it’s the ‘tool’ for ensuring your loved one receives the best care possible.”
— John Lanyon, CFA and Co-Founder of KareInn
Digital Care Planning 101
Care planning is an essential aspect for supporting the elderly and vulnerable in care homes across the UK. The ability to document and retrieve personalised care plans based on individual needs in real-time, on a mobile device and at the point of care, is a vital part of ensuring the best care can be provided. But what do digital care plans look like and how are they used in a care home setting? The best place to start would be to define what care planning is before going on to explain care planning in its digital form.
What is care planning?
A care plan is a compiled document for an individual in care, detailing and recording the support the care home resident requires. Care plans are vital in ensuring individuals receive personalised care that suits their exact health and social needs. Although each plan is unique, they all serve the same purpose: ensuring that all individuals receive the treatment they need regardless of which staff are on duty and providing a place for the collective noting on previously administered care.
Why should you look for a care home with digital care planning?
Digital care planning is essentially the same as non-digital care planning, but the methods required to implement it are all digitized. This means that resident records are all held in a secure digital space as well as all personal data and information that is relevant to that person’s care. Care homes that use digitized care planning remove the need for trolley-loads of files to be transported around care homes and reduce the amount of time it takes to search for resident information to conduct care plan reviews.
Having a digital-based care planning system in place also means that care homes can allow anyone with the correct credentials to access and read a resident’s plan. This ensures efficient collaboration between doctors, nurses and carers as well as making it easier than ever before for carers to see a care home resident’s plan in real-time at the point of care.
One of the most important aspects of a care plan is its flexibility. People’s wants and needs change with time, and this is especially true for individuals in care. If the care needs of a resident change, then their care plan must be immediately altered to reflect this change in need, and the quickest way to do this is to do it digitally on a mobile device at the point of care. This provides residents and carers with the peace of mind that records are kept up to date all of the time to the highest degree possible.
The care planning process – what does it look like?
Digital care planning, much like non-digital care planning, must involve a person-centred process. At the end of the day, care plans are there to help people, and people should always be at the centre of this process.
The process of care planning involves a few vital steps:
Talk to the care home resident – Amongst all the professionals with detailed knowledge on the health and social situation of the resident, it’s often easy to forget to talk to the resident themselves about what they feel they need when it comes to their own care.
Talk to the professionals – Although the care home resident is the most important person in this process, gauging professional opinion to help fully assess the needs of the resident is a crucial step.
Set goals – Setting care goals gives the resident and care workers something to aim towards as well as keeping the care process consistent and in line with long term thinking.
Maintain regular upkeep of the plan – This includes making sure that the treatment and care administered is always noted down in the plan so other healthcare professionals know exactly what has been done with the care home resident already.
How does KareInn digital care planning work?
KareInn provides carers with unique features that allow them to fulfil their duties in the best way possible. KareInn’s digital care planning system allows staff to access a resident’s care plan from any device at the tip of their fingers, meaning that detailed notes and instructions are only a password away.
KareInn also provides features such as dictation, meaning that carers can dictate their notes on the fly. This helps to ensure that information is always kept up to date. Being a digital service, the ability to take and upload photos also means that wounds and bruises can be documented and linked to the care plan as soon as they appear. With KareInn, digital care planning has never been easier, giving carers the tools they need to administer top-quality care to every care home resident regardless of who’s on staff rota.
If you’d like to learn more, we’d love to help. Speak with one of our experienced consultants to find out more.
