Your care teams routinely update each client’s individual care plan throughout their care journey, amending their preferences and needs as their circumstances change. But manual processes are time-consuming, can be prone to errors and updates may even get missed entirely. All of which can potentially impact on client care and your organisations regulatory compliance.
According to Regulation 9 of the Health and Social Care Act 2008 Regulations 2014, ‘Assessments should be reviewed regularly and whenever needed throughout the person's care and treatment.’ and ‘Staff providing care must be kept up to date with any changes to a person's needs and preferences.’
In this article, we’re looking at how digital care planning can help you beat care plan update battles and provide more tailored, seamless and compliant care.
What is a care plan?
A care plan is a personalised document that includes all the care needs and preferences of your client. Care plans are regularly reviewed to ensure the information is up to date and accurate to the changing needs of the client.
What does a care plan include?
Some of the things that are included in a care plan may be:
- Client care needs, as well as things they can do independently
- Personal preferences, hobbies and interests
- Number of hours or days of the week care is delivered
- Detailed record of the care being delivered
- Contact details of family members
- Background information
- Types of equipment or support needed
- Long-term and short-term care goals
Why is an effective care plan integral to providing high quality care?
Providing Personalised Care
An effective care plan is essential for providing high quality, personalised care. Each piece of information gathered within a care plan - whether through observations, collaboration with other stakeholders or side by side with the client - is crucial for tailoring care to each individual circumstance and need. No matter who is delivering care that specific day, a care plan will provide them with all the details they need to support their client in exactly the right way.
Establishing Risk Assessments
A comprehensive assessment of any potential risks is another part of creating a thorough care plan. Understanding medical conditions, limitations or the safety of the home should all be established when creating a clients care plan, to ensure any modifications can be made and their care needs can be met safely.
Ensuring Regulation Compliance
An effective care plan will include all the information that allows your teams to do what they do best – care. But it will also provide the details needed for evidencing how you are adhering to all standards required by regulatory bodies, such as the Care Quality Commission (CQC).
How digital care planning helps social care organisations provide high quality care
1. Efficient Care Coordination
Digital care plans may alert your teams for things like when medication is scheduled or whether care interventions are due. Not only can this help to improve your organisation’s overall efficiency, but it also ensures that your service is organised, compliant and adheres to each individual care plan effectively.
And not only this, when you utilise cloud-based software it helps enable real-time collaboration, ensuring everyone is on the same page as all updates are immediately accessible. This means that no matter who is visiting the client that day (whether they are a new employee, from an agency or just filling in a colleague’s shift), they can always meet the client’s needs even if they haven’t visited them before.
This single source of truth can then help to ensure the care delivered remains both safe and accurate as the care journey progresses.
2. Streamlined Operations
Care planning software allows your teams to create, update, and access care plans electronically. This eliminates the need for paper-based documentation, making it quicker and more convenient for your busy staff to manage evolving care plans.
Features like real-time care plan updates helps ensure that everyone involved is well-informed and updated on care decisions and progress. And with that transparency, your employees are empowered to make decisions on the spot as they have all the necessary care plan updates at their fingertips.
A cloud-based digital care plan can also help you to provide documentation and prove accountability no matter when or where you need it. And because the central software automatically updates with any changes, you can provide real-time data of how care is managed and evaluated in line with the fundamental standards you work towards.
3. Enhanced Decision Making
As part of the same Health and Social Care Act 2008 Regulation mentioned earlier, ‘The person using the service must be able to discuss care and treatment choices continually and have support to make any changes to those choices if they wish.’
When digital records are accessible at the point of care, your care workers can continue to discuss the plan with the client to ensure the care they are receiving is exactly what it needs to be, lending to enhanced quality of care and more empowered users.
And care business management software can also allow your care managers to efficiently gather information about individual needs, preferences, and outcomes, so they can ensure highly personalised and effective care is being provided. They may then analyse these details, homing in on any data that may help improve client satisfaction.
Care Cloud is our Software as a Service (SaaS) care business management solution for all types of care providers.
But it’s more than just care planning software. Care Cloud gives you complete oversight of all your care business needs; from your client care plans and care assessments to your recruitment pipeline and staff rostering.
Find out today about how Care Cloud can meet your organisations needs.
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