Horsham, United Kingdom, June 30, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- 
CareLineLive Explains Why Care Tech Is Critical to Meet Growing Demand for Professional Home Care
Vast shortages in home care staff profoundly impact communities unable to source compassionate care, hospitals unable to discharge medically well patients, and home care agencies who struggle to recruit and retain high-quality care staff who deliver much-needed services.
With a reported 76,000 vacant domiciliary home care posts in the UK, and an increase of 52% in shortages across the adult social care sector, leading home care management software provider CareLineLive explains why harnessing technological advancements is the key to unlocking scalability.
The Care Tech Opportunity for Home Care Providers
CareLineLive specialises in user-friendly home care management software that agencies can deploy immediately to benefit from resource optimisation, administrative efficiency and real-time communications.
Some of the already available solutions include transitions to fully paperless systems for staff care rostering, care logs, client record-sharing and task scheduling.
By cutting down on time spent on activities that do not add value to carer time management, or clients' experiences, the company suggests that agencies can significantly improve how they manage limited resources and focus more on streamlining processes to boost capacity.
Founder and Managing Director at Carelinelive, Josh Hough, says: "Efficiency is fundamental, and we can see huge potential for agencies with the baseline knowledge and skill to deliver fantastic care to make significant changes to the way they work to meet the unprecedented levels of demand for care in the privacy of the home.
Many of the examples are, in practice, very simple - things like recording fluid intake, medications and meals on a digital, interactive client portal, following checklists to reduce errors and complete tasks faster, or having mileage between visits tracked automatically and this information added to timesheets mean carers have more time to spend on what they do best – caring for people and families.
Within our accomplished team of developers, we are excited to be working on further innovations and welcome any care agency to get in touch to discuss how we can help and where technological enhancements can act as a powerful catalyst for growth."
The Administration Workload Associated With Care Roles and Agencies
A study by The Kings Fund in 2021 found that outdated paperwork and record-keeping processes were detrimental to patient outcomes, with admin errors having ‘significant consequences’ and ‘connected to readmission to hospital and serious harm’.
Accurate, up-to-date admin and paperwork tasks are integral to delivering personalised care and, indeed, a regulatory requirement. For home carers, this includes varied responsibilities such as:
- Logging visits to each home care client and the hours spent with the individual.
- Tasks completed, such as dressing, bathing and medication dispensed.
- Meals consumed, updates on dietary information and preferences.
- Preparing care updates for family members and third-party health professionals.
- Recording hours and mileage on timesheets and submitting expense forms.
By digitising all of these tasks, every carer could free up a large proportion of their working day, either providing greater companionship care or reducing the duration of each care visit by minimising the hours allocated to admin and record keeping.
A comparable advantage applies to home care agency management, who can apply similar full-scope optimisation to expedite internal processes such as payroll and client invoicing.
The Care Quality Commission in England supports the introduction of digital and app-based record keeping and states that the transition 'is essential for truly integrated services', while the UK government has set a target for 80% of all social care providers to digitise their records by March 2024.
Future Tech Innovation in UK Home Care
While CareLineLive already provides a variety of tech-based services, including eMAR care tools and a Care Circle Portal for loved ones to liaise with carers, the business advises that agencies who do not transition now may fall further behind.
As demand grows and capacity falls, the existing care availability crisis could deepen, where agencies and public sector providers reliant on outdated paper-based systems and legacy solutions simply cannot free up more time to support more clients or will find it difficult to sustain existing client bases if staffing numbers fall.
Josh Hough says: "The integration of tech into vital home care services is developing at pace, and we are delighted to be working on ways to incorporate smart home connectivity and voice activation alongside wearable tech into the care space.
Devices that currently detect blood sugar levels are on track to expand to more in-depth diagnostics and preventative care. At the same time, home carers will be able to accelerate their record-keeping obligations further using the efficiency of smartwatch dictation.
The aim, as always, is to improve home care safety, quality, availability and innovation, and by doing so, we hope to help many more agencies realise new ways to increase their capacity for the long-term benefit of all parties.”
Read more about CareLineLive - Carelinelive Advocates for Digital Home Care Agency Management to Address Sector Staffing Shortages
About CareLineLive
CareLineLive is an award winning UK care management software system that delivers complete functionality for home care businesses. Set up in 2014, CareLineLive has used the latest technology to develop for agency owners and managers an innovative, easy to use, cloud based home care management system that is truly fit for purpose.
Media Contact:
Marie Page
CareLineLive
03300885767
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Source Company: https://carelinelive.com/
