In both Sweden and Denmark charities such as the Mary Homes and Stora Sköndal have made the switch from paper documentation to digital care planning. Using their data for both quality and efficiency enhancements makes their services more personalised, building on their respective beliefs and organisational visions.
With the help of technology, the Mary Homes have a support system in place that previously wasn’t possible.
“We had a resident with a lot of nurse calls. When we rushed to aid her, it usually turned out that the reason for calling was a glass of lemonade and other nice, but smaller things. Here, our registrations have helped us understand this resident much better and create more appropriate uses of the emergency call”, Home Manager Karina Lange explains.
This is exactly how technology should support care staff, she believes.
“We track the items that previously used to be buried in paperwork, more closely now. We can take a specific course of action regarding a progress note or incident and register the effects in the relevant period. After some time, we can then extract a log of good quality to analyse and interpret the data for improvements.”
Overall evidencing care now requires less staff, while the number of registrations and documentation have significantly increased. At the end of the day, the grounds for decision-making have been more integrated than ever before and it is better visualised whether the staff is providing care in accordance with the residents’ care plans.
Stora Sköndal in the Stockholm area experience a similar effect. Here, digital is more than a planning instrument. Every care plan is bespoken to the resident’s service needs. All members of staff sign-off on the care plan as they complete the associated activities.
“Before we got Sekoia, our documentation was paper-based. It was hard on everyone, and especially on us, the nurses. We were printing paper lists every month, and mixing these with our handwriting,” nurse Sabina Carlsson explains.
With digital care planning in place, everyone can see who did what and the time they did it. This creates a safety net for the staff who are reassured nothing is forgotten, indirectly helping to decrease stress levels. A trick you should not forget, according to the Swedes.
At a provider level, the reporting that comes out of being digital is of a higher standard than was possible with a paper-based system.
“We use our reporting in a number of ways. Both for dependency and capacity reviews. We are now better equipped to document the actual care needs of our residents. Most importantly, we can adjust our care delivery in accordance with the actual person’s need, which is something that benefits us greatly”, Karina Lange concludes.
Sekoia
