Electronic Call Monitoring Software- Why You Need It
Between the NHS goal of going paperless by 2020, GDPR and the CQCs increasingly complex recommendations and inspection criteria, the domiciliary care management software industry is growing just as fast as the demand for care, with numerous homecare monitoring systems currently available on the market. But what is it and why is it important for care providers to have it?
What is Domiciliary Care Software?
Electronic Call Monitoring Software or ECM Software is a system that allows the management and monitoring of an organization's information, allowing users to capture, manage, store, preserve, and deliver information and documents. Within the care industry, this translates to benefits such as carers having secure, electronic access to important information such as rotas, care plans and MARcharts and administrators or managers being able to view and monitor this information in real time.
Traditionally monitoring and auditing care visits has been a time-consuming process. Checking medications have been taken, visits have taken place, care plans have been fulfilled and even rostering is a slow process prone to human error. Carers report problems such as travel time not being factored into their calls resulting in calls being cut short, not having the correct qualifications to deal with a client with complex needs and large quantities of paperwork that take their time and attention away from their clients. Managers face issues such as not knowing if calls have been completed, missing paperwork and data protection headaches, not knowing where their staff are and struggling to assess whether care needs have been met within short periods of time. Overall, managing the increasingly complex systems of a care provider via paperwork is expensive, time-consuming and inefficient.
Changes Within the Industry
The NHS has recommended that better use of data and technology can:
- give patients more control over their health and well-being
- empower carers
- reduce the administrative burden for care professionals
- support the development of new medicines and treatments
The CQC now factors the quality of care management software into their inspection ratings, with Electronic Call Monitoring a must in all categories of safety, effectiveness, care quality, responsiveness and leadership. To obtain a high rating- particularly for homecare services where staff are providing healthcare at home- it is imperative a good call monitoring software is in place to help you manage your staff and clients in compliance with health and safety, CQC guidance and GDPR/data protection. Local councils will also insist that ECM is used to monitor the provision of care being delivered to home care and domiciliary service users.
What can you expect from a good domiciliary care management system?
OnePlan Software's revolutionary system uses both ECM and NFC (near-field communication) Technology to automate and speed up processes, provide detailed tracking and monitoring information and improve overall safety and care quality.
Call Monitoring Software: NFC Technology and tracking in the carers mobile phone device gives you absolute proof of work. When scanned the system can tell you exactly when and where the tag was scanned proving staff where on call in the correction location at that time. MARcharts and personal care plans will not allow the carer to exit without confirming the status of the client's medication and actioning the task list, allowing administrators to check clients status in real-time and identify any issues with call length, medications and, importantly in a life or death situation, instantly view flagged incident reports or missed calls. All client data is cloud-based and encrypted ensuring complete GDPR compliance.
Rostering Software: OnePlan Software allows automated one-click rostering that matches the client to carer by qualifications and care needs, location and travel time. This eliminates room for error with shortened calls due to travel constraints and ensures clients are matched to a carer that can fulfil their care needs. Holidays and absences are also factored in with an automated conflict manager that will let you know if anything changes. Our colour-coded multi-view system allows you to view by graph or list depending on what you are most comfortable with, turning what used to be a logistical headache into a breeze, saving vital time you can allocate to care.
How to Choose
Choosing a software can be difficult with so many available on the market. Our best advice is to choose a comprehensive software that can assist you with all administrative processes including invoicing, payroll and free messaging, to further save you time and money. The more the system does, the more time and money you will save!
Choosing a system that has NFC Technology is also vital as the system can instantly check where and when a carer clocked in, identifying any potential issues with carers and providing you and clients families with peace of mind. To find out more about our system and how it can help you save time and money whilst improving care quality, book your demo at: https://www.oneplansoftware.co.uk/contact/
https://digital.nhs.uk/news-and-events/news-archive/2016-news-archive/national-information-board-paperless-2020
