Boosting care quality

Without continuity of care, a person's level of care may deteriorate over time. Continuity of care is crucial in all facets of healthcare, from GP visits to frequent hospital stays and home healthcare assistance.

To guarantee that service users receive highquality, consistent care, continuity of care is incredibly important. According to research conducted by the CMS, continuity of care has been shown to lift outcomes, including patient wellbeing, and improve illnesses to enhance the overall quality of treatment.

However, continuity of treatment has decreased over the past ten years for various forms of care, such as visiting a GP, which is likely due to budget cuts and overburdened services.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence currently considers continuity of care in adult care services to be a part of its quality criteria to satisfy a service user's needs, making it crucial for homecare. Continuity of care is a vital feature of homecare services, as homecare professionals help service users to continue living in their own home while receiving quality assistance.

Effective communication and the timely and accurate sharing of information are essential for ensuring a patient receives continuity of care. To ensure allinformation is consistent in your homecare business, a service user's records must be readily available and current.

Embedding continuity of care

If your service users are cared for by a consistent carer, your homecare business is more likely to be providing continuity of care. This will allow your service users to establish connections with individual caregivers who are aware of their preferences and the precise type of care they require. This will therefore provide much higher quality of care than if they simply receive care from whoever is available.

However, interprofessional concerns, the standard of administrative tasks and organisational considerations all have an impact on continuity of care, so it's not only about the front-line caregivers.

Given limited resources and schedules, you might believe you don't have the time to fully implement continuity of care. But it doesn’t have to be difficult – for example:

1. Reducing time spent on admin

To guarantee things are done correctly in the homecare sector, administration is crucial. However, your carers could be spending that time developing relationships with service users rather than spending their time filling in care plans and taking notes manually. Systems without paper might help your caregivers stay on top of administrative duties without wasting time filling out paper forms.

2. Efficiently allocate resources

Effective resource management can support you in enhancing both the continuity of your medical care and the financial success of your enterprises. Employees who care for clients who live close to one another can reduce travel time and petrol expenses while assuring the same team members are seeing the same service users. Resources can be easily allocated for you by using homecare software, allowing you to save money without adding to your workload.

3. Encouraging carer training

You may help your caregivers provide more types of care by encouraging them to expand their skill sets. As a result, you won't need to hire new caregivers whenever a service user has a brand-new requirement. A homecare system makes it simple to store the training requirements for your caregivers, allowing you to be aware of any training needs.

Your homecare business can grow while providing high quality care if you take the time to evaluate how you can incorporate continuity of care with minor adjustments to your operations.

Overcoming continuity of care challenges

With a paperless system, you can achieve continuity of care since all of your caregiver and service user information is kept in one convenient location and is immediately accessible. Your procedures can be kept the same while being stored in a single, entirely digital location that is secure and private.

For more information on how you can improve continuity of care with a digital system, request a few demo or call 01254 819205.