Sixteenth century English philosopher Francis Bacon is credited as being the first to coin the phrase “knowledge is power”. Real-time care plans and records provide the knowledge families need to ensure their relative is in safe hands.
In the world of social care, technology is increasingly empowering families by providing more and more detailed information about the physical and mental well-being of their loved ones. By linking with residents’ electronic care plans, gateway systems provide a secure and vital shared communication and information source for families, friends, carers and health practitioners.
The systems help allay relatives’ worries by providing detailed real-time care plan and records that they can view on their smartphones, tablets or computers about the daily lives of their loved ones who may be at home or in a residential care setting. Family members can instantly see how much their parent is eating and drinking, the medication they are receiving and how they are sleeping, as well as gaining insight into their general mental and physical well-being.
With care home scare stories topping the news agenda, families can feel more assured that their loved ones are receiving the level of quality care they desire by accessing real time care plans and records with up-to-date information on what tasks carers have completed.
Families who may not be able to visit their relative as often as they’d like to because of their busy schedule or because they live in another part of world can benefit from instant access to information.
By providing greater transparency, the technology helps alleviate the risk of communication breakdowns between relatives and care providers that can often lead to conflict and misunderstanding in what can be a highly emotionally charged situation.
By linking with healthcare professionals, gateway systems are also playing a vital role in improving health and social care integration through improving information and data sharing.
The technology ensures all care professionals, including GPs, district nurses, commissioners, social workers and emergency responders have access to the same up-to-date and accurate data so that they can work together to provide more effective joined-up care.
Carers, for their part, benefit by being freed of the burden of time-consuming paperwork and are given more time to spend with those they care for.
The greater sharing of care data is a potentially sensitive area for care providers but the technology has been widely embraced by the sector with providers seeing it as a competitive differentiator that can generate additional revenue as a chargeable extra.
With a gateway system like openPASS created by everyLIFE Technologies, providers can also be proud of their transparency, while having the reassurance that their data is secure and fully compliant with increasingly stringent regulations.
By Andrew Mason
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