When families select rest homes or aged-care providers for their loved ones, one of their biggest concerns is whether that person will be treated as an individual or just a number.
Kerikeri Retirement Village is a community organisation. It’s a non-profitable charitable company run by our local community for our local community. As a result most of the people we look after have been members of our community for donkeys years and would never become ‘just a number’.
That said, we’re always on the hunt for new ways to ensure that we can personalise even further the care and attention that we offer to our care patients. And we think we’ve found just the ticket.
We have recently introduced a single technology system right across the Village to streamline every aspect of our operation, from registering and managing requests for our retirement accommodation through to streamlining patient record-keeping in our care wing.
The eCase management system is helping us to reduce costs, eliminate the need for paper-based records, and de-duplicate a raft of records and databases. It also boosts the level of care and oversight in our care facilty by enabling staff to make patient notes at the bedside and for these to be reviewed by supervisors in real-time if necessary.
Every detail of a resident’s involvement with the Village will be accessible at the click of a mouse, from the first email sent to enquire about living here through to an up-to-the-minute report of any medical treatment and prescription information.
If a family member tells one of our health assistants at 11am that Mum is craving bananas, the system will enable our catering staff to ensure that there’s a banana on her plate that lunchtime.
Real-time, template-based record-keeping at patients’ bedsides does away with the need for healthcare assistants to write up notes at the end of each shift, reducing their workload and improving the quality of information on file. Staff starting shifts have a complete, written record of treatment and any issues affecting patients as at the end of the previous shift, instead of having to rely on verbal handovers or waiting until notes have been written up.
The system helps from a health and safety perspective as well. If there is an accident or near miss it allows staff to log it immediately and prompts action by our quality and risk co-ordinator.
Technology like eCase will really only deliver meaningful results if it’s combined with human warmth and empathy at the point of care. For us, eCase is all about enhancing the service and care we provide our residents, and about getting rid of administrative inefficiencies and frustrations for staff and the families of our residents.
In short, it’s about getting Mum her banana.
