It seems as though everything we do in our day to day lives is gradually starting to involve more and more technology. Although it can be a bit daunting to make the switch to new digital technology at first, if it fits seamlessly into your daily routine it can become indispensable and help to improve the quality care provided. In this blog, we’ll look at care plan technology and whether it can help residents in care homes to receive better care.

What is care plan technology?

Care plan technology is the way we describe anything to do with recording and organising care plans digitally. Once the tech has been set up, it can be used by the Care Manager or Carers directly and monitor care in real time. Care Managers and Senior staff can use care plan technology to coordinate care across the service and make sure that the appropriate care tasks have been completed correctly and on time. The technology can also be used to analyse care plans and to understand an individual’s needs, which results in the delivery of outstanding person-centred care.

How can it help to enable better care for residents in a care home?

It may sound obvious, but being able to access information when you need it is important. This is the main strength of care plan technology. Important information can always be accessed as and when required. This data can be analysed and used to help create better care plans that are more tailored to individuals’ needs as the information a Care Manager can call upon is much more detailed. For example, although a Carer may only enter one piece of information, the technology automatically creates additional information in the background such as time, frequency, who provided and received. This then can be used to identify areas that require improvement.

Managers can make interventions and change patterns to address residents’ needs. Because most care plan technology connects with devices that are carried around in the pockets of staff, they can record care at delivery. This means that they don’t need to run off to furiously take notes in the office and the information they retain is far greater. All of this information is safely stored on the cloud, which saves huge amounts of space when it comes to storage. In a nutshell, you can be confident that it is used correctly to give residents the very best care. Care technology helps you to keep track of care that is being delivered and helps you stay on top of it. Nothing will get forgotten and the care plans are more tightly geared around residents’ specific needs.

What does this mean in practice? 

By now you’re probably asking yourself what this means for you in your care home. Well, we’ve spent a lot of time talking to carers about how care technology can actually help and enhance the care that they give. That’s why we’ve developed technology that is based on something that can be carried in your pocket to help improve the little things in carer’s lives. To complete tasks carers simply take out their smart device, open the app, tap a few icons to tick off tasks or add notes, and carry on with their routine. We also know how easy it can be to forget a task if you get interrupted or called off to do something else. That’s why there’s a snooze feature for tasks, helping carers prioritise their responsibilities and manage their time more effectively.

Each task or time spent with residents is logged and can be seen immediately by care managers, which gives greater visibility of care delivery than paper notes. Managers can also analyse reports or data to see what care is delivered and where. Care technology really is clever, and the more you use it the more it will adapt to understand your needs – and that’s where care management software really comes into its own. It knows that every care home has unique requirements and will adapt to help residents and carers alike.

Where can you get your hands on care plan technology?

A quick Google search for “Care home software” will bring up a whole host of providers, which you can assess to find the correct tech that is right for your care service. Each will have its own strengths and weaknesses, we produce an award-winning free system called Log my Care, that if you’re budget conscious is always worth look.