Care innovations: wearable technology for the elderly
As healthcare improves, life expectancy rises and people are opting to stay at home for longer. Families are having an increased responsibility in the care of their older relatives and many opt for domiciliary care. It is crucial that older people are given as much freedom as possible to live an independent and active life whilst being comforted by the knowledge that help is available as and when they need it – families and carers cannot always be around, but wearable technology can. Wearable technology can give more and more freedom to elderly people and their families to stay independent and active whilst allowing their families, carers and healthcare professionals to be able to monitor their health whilst they are with them – and also remotely. Technology is also being used to improve the care that is being given to older people. According to 24-hour care experts at Helping Hands Home Care “the ability to track and manage home care visits effectively is so important to providing a safe and efficient service”. Technology is certainly changing the way that we are able to care for our elderly relatives, whether it is delaying the time that it takes for them to need more full-time care, the monitoring of certain health aspects or giving family peace of mind. Wearable technology for elderly people In a similar way that we can monitor certain aspects of our health through wearable technology, such as a Fitbit, there is now more and more technology becoming available for elderly people. Here are some of the best and most effective pieces of technology that you might wish to consider to be ensured of their safety and monitor existing health conditions with ease and accuracy: Lively Mobile Plus GreatCall’s Lively Mobile Plus is an excellent option for family members who are worried about their elderly relatives having a fall. As people get older and frailer, the possibility of falling becomes greater and the consequences of falling also become potentially more serious. The Lively Mobile Plus consists of a wearable pendant or clip that is waterproof and connected to agents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It can be worn in the shower and by simply pressing a button your loved one can speak to an agent whenever they need to. It is also fitted with a GPS meaning that should your loved one get into trouble when they are out and about, they can easily be found. Users pay a monthly fee for the monitoring services. Alert-1’s Mobile + Home Fall Detection System Another option for those who are mainly concerned about family members having a fall is the Alert-1 Mobile + Home Fall Detection System. There are two systems – a small and light, portable device with fall detection technology, GPS and two-way voice calling. A separate sensor unit can be worn at home giving the portable device time to charge, available either as a pendant or a wristband. If the sensor detects a fall, a call is put through to the Alert-1 call centre, the staff of which can then send help if it is needed. Care Touch Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor Blood pressure is a concern for many older people. The Care Touch Wrist Blood Pressure Monitor is worn as a wristband, battery operated and can give you quick and accurate blood pressure readings. The monitor is much less bulky than other machines and will give the results in a bright and easy to read display – as well as being able to store up to 60 readings. The monitor will also alert the wearer if they have an irregular heartbeat, but it does need to be fitted properly and calibrated to get accurate readings. ActiveProtective Airbag Smart Belt Soon to be hitting the market is the ActiveProtective Airbag Smart Belt. Breaking or fracturing a hip during a fall is unfortunately very common, and the consequences of this can often be even more serious. The Airbag Smart Belt is fit just like any other belt but incorporates technology to detect when a person is falling, triggering the belt to inflate and protecting the hip. It takes the belt 60 milliseconds to inflate and also includes Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to be able to alert caregivers that someone has fallen. The belt is lightweight and comfortable to wear but offers an extra layer of protection – which is much needed as our loved ones get older and frailer. Although many of us can be reluctant to embrace everything that technology has to throw at us, some technological advancements can be highly beneficial to us. With wearable tech, we cannot only see the quality of life for our loved ones improve, but we can also have more peace of mind ourselves.
Using technology to advantage in health, aged, social services and home care
The CQC fundamental standards highlight the need to support people to express their views and be actively involved in making decisions about their home care, treatment and support. Organisations need to show that staff routinely involve people who use their services, in planning and making decisions about their care and treatment. The era of health professionals deciding care and goals is over. Technology can support residents, clients, staff and managers alike, achieve these aims if the right type of technology / software is used. Staff are responsible for ensuring a person’s clinical, medical and care needs, preferences and lifestyle choices are professionally assessed, and that a care plan is created that describes all these. If the resident is to be involved as possible in the process, technology needs to enable them to contribute to these assessments and plans. Does your technology support a resident’s contribution to care planning? Technology also has to aid staff reduce the documentation burden but what is the aim of documentation? Documentation has to capture e.g. cultural, social and religious needs and determine how these relate to care. Staff must take this information into account when delivering services. Technology should not just collect ‘staff actions taken’data. Staff need to know which meals to provide, how to support activities of daily living, but also residents’ emotional functional/ physical support needs, continence needs and the pain management strategies to utilise all day. We work in aged care because we care what happens to older persons or those requiring support, hence the data we collect has to be meaningful. Technology solutions must record a holistic assessment of all aspects of a person’s life for staff to address each day – not just the tasks undertaken by staff – and automatically make care plans from the assessment data captured. How can technology do this? Apps designed to gather preferences, choices and clinical information for residents and staff, that interface dynamically with a full clinical, social, medication and operations’ management software system, from any tablet or phone, are now available by quality software providers. Technology can also auto-alert health and care professionals re key information held by these products. For example, beacon technology can be used to push critical client or resident information to a device as staff walk past a beacon disc on a door or house. Apps can also aid residents feel part of the community. They can present information on a resident’s tablet or phone screen, including streetscapes of favourite places that can be watched as the person exercises, or images uploaded by staff or family on the resident’s home page, that represents a person’s timeline, supporting reminiscence and emotional calm. Technology can also aid manager’s critical decision making processes. Residents want managers to know that an infection resolves in 7 days with x antibiotic and interventions but 2 weeks with other interventions. They want management to analyse all the falls in the bathrooms vs the corridor this month, and know at what time of the day they occurred to establish if staff ratios are appropriate at those times. They want staff to know how many pillows/blankets they prefer, their overnight continence aid, the book or magazine to keep with them in the lounge or the movie or sport they want to watch. Not all software companies are the same and not all technology achieves what is really needed. As healthcare environments and services are ever changing, software systems need to provide full content configuration, forms and reports builders, that reflect instantly in the linked Apps that are used by staff and residents. Apps need to be auto-modified through changes made in the software so every organisation can become their own, at no extra cost, development company. Choosing the right technology not only helps you save money – but can also aid you to future proof your organisation. Author: Dr Caroline Lee, Group Chief Executive Officer Company: Leecare Solutions UK Limited, Leecare Solutions Pty Ltd, Leecare Health Pte Ltd UK GM: Temby Nyemba RGN, BSc, MA Telephone: UK: +44 7456 050032 Head office: +61 3 9339 6888 Web Address: www.leecare.co.uk www.leecare.irish
Reducing staff turnover in the care industry
Colin Stevenson, the founder of Notable Change International recruitment and consultancy services, tells editor Victoria Galligan the need for selecting the right candidate through an effective screening process to make the much-needed changes in the care industry. Currently the care industry as a whole has an extremely high turnover of staff, especially true for the businesses employing care workers. The usual recruitment process at the moment is: advertise for the role, sift through CVs, carry out credentials and qualifications checks or a reference check, interview, possibly offer a second interview, then a job offer. If using a recruitment consultancy, employers are passed on applicants based on their CV and interview bias (if the consultancy likes someone and think they will suit the role, they will be passed to the employer). If recruiting in-house, it is the same process. If the CV, face and interview fits, a position will be offered. This is how it is in most industries – but this inefficient method is costing the care industry a fortune in both time and money. Personality traits, both internal and external, mean a picture presented in the interview process may not be a candidate’s true self. Internal traits make up who we are, while external traits are who we would like people to think we are in order to get somewhere or acquire something. As a result, many staff leave or are asked to leave their roles within a short period of time. From this we have a clear picture that something has to be done to ensure maximum time and money can be spent on service users rather than a failing recruitment process. How does this happen in the care industry? The interview process is the same, an applicant who does well in an interview shows their external traits, maybe exaggerates or even makes up traits to suit the position. What is hidden is their internal traits which will determine how they work, interact and most importantly care for the service users. The applicant sails the CV sift, sails the qualifications, sails the interview and becomes employed by the company. However, soon the employer finds the applicant is over-dominant, which can mean they are hard to manage, or has a low-patience threshold with service users – and traits such as these usually cause work-based conflict. A CV, two interviews and a qualification paper would not have recognised this. Hiring this person would have caused upset to the workplace dynamics, staff and service users, and inevitably the staff member would leave or be asked to leave as they were unsuitable for the position and the process will begin again – trying to look for a suitable staff member. Notable Change uses a profiling system for applicants, finding out their internal and external traits after the interview process to ensure the applicant will suit the role and the care home dynamics through answering a series of questions that produces a report. To make this even better, an employer can design their ideal candidate, using the model of their best member of staff or creating a profile with traits they wish their ideal candidate to have. This ‘ideal candidate profile’ will be used as a template for future candidates, to ensure complete peace of mind, close the profitability gap and most importantly allow employers to spend the time and money saved on recruitment on the service users, without hiring the ‘wrong applicant’ for the job. See notablechangeintl.com for more details.
