Technology in care homes

Available technology in our care homes

At our care home, we leverage a variety of digital systems. We’ve detailed these below.

Needless to say, our team provides our residents and their families with personalised support, to ensure every resident can access technology suited just for them.

Our systems include:

Used by residents and families:

• High bandwidth internet
• Wifi throughout the home
• Voice over Internet phones, which means residents can make and receive calls anywhere within the home
• Zoom, Teams and virtually any online meeting including residents and relatives meetings and calls with GP/ third parties
• Family portal, which gives minute by minute updates on loved ones (see Nourish)
• Online visit booking application

Used to support our operations:

• Nourish digital care management system
• Omnicell – electronic medications administration
• Nexus nurse call – enables real time monitoring of nurse calls and response times
• Sophisticated monitoring, governance and quality control processes
• Proxy access – online medications ordering / admin
• GP connect – enables us to view resident’s health records
• Trusted Care enquiry management – used to support enquiries for admissions
• Asana – online purchasing and contractor management system
• Microsoft Dynamics Finance system and online payroll
• Judgement Index – ‘values’ based recruitment and staff development product
• Remote video meetings
• Online staff training

High bandwidth internet

Our care homes are equipped with high-speed fibre internet for data transfer rates of up to 50mbps. This robust connection lets us utilise digital systems, remain connected and offer entertainment services that help make life at our facilities more enjoyable and comfortable. 

Wifi

Our care home is equipped with Wifi connectivity throughout all communal areas as well as in each room. This innovative feature allows residents to access a wide range of digital services such as:

• Amazon Alexa
• On-demand TV and movies
• Voice over Internet Telephone (VoIP)
• Video calls with friends and family
• Internet browsing on their own devices

Our residents’ relatives have the same level of access to Wifi in our care homes. 

Our staff also benefit from this technology, which supports the use of phone access, IT systems, care monitoring, and advanced nurse call applications throughout the care home.

VoIP phones

To prepare for the switch off of BT’s ISDN service in 2025, we have implemented VoIP phones in our care home. By making all voice calls over the internet, we are future-proofing our communication system.

GP/ third party online meetings

To ensure prompt healthcare meetings for our residents, we conduct virtual meetings with GPs and social workers whenever possible. This not only saves time, but also helps healthcare professionals work more efficiently.

Family Portal

The Family Portal is a valuable addition to our Nourish system, allowing families to monitor their loved ones’ care in real-time. With access to individual care home care plans and daily updates, families can stay connected and informed.

Online visit booking application

We have introduced an online visitor booking system to simplify the process of arranging visits for family members. With easy online booking, families can spend more time with their loved ones and less time coordinating visits.

Nourish Digital Care Management System

Our care home utilises the Nourish Digital Care Management System, which is a cutting-edge cloud-based software application that enables us to provide comprehensive care coordination for our residents. With Nourish, our team can easily create detailed care plans and activity timelines, record assessments and progress notes, and access all resident information in one place. This enables us to deliver person-centred care and make informed decisions based on real-time data.

Nourish also allows us to track a wide range of resident information including weight, nutrition, hydration, medications, incidents, skin condition, vital signs, mood, and more. With every staff member equipped with a smartphone, they can easily access and update information while providing care. 

The Nourish dashboard provides managers with live information. This means that they can both ensure that everything that needs to be done is being done and also to make well-informed proactive decisions to enable even better care.

Both Nourish and the dashboard issue alarms and alerts to a specified hierarchy of users (including the manager and CEO!) to inform if tasks have not been completed or serious incidents have occurred.

Omnicell

At our care home, we use Omnicell, an advanced electronic medication administration and recording system. This system uses automated processes to ensure safe medication administration and recording for every prescribed medication. With detailed stock control functionality, we can easily monitor medication usage and ensure adequate stock levels. Overall, Omnicell helps us improve medication safety while increasing staff efficiency.

Nexus nurse call

Our care home utilises the Nexus nurse call system, which is a communication system that interfaces with the existing nurse call system. Unlike traditional nurse call bells that sound loudly and disrupt the peaceful environment, Nexus sends silent alerts to staff smartphones. This approach creates a calm and homely atmosphere that minimises disturbances for our residents. Additionally, management can be immediately alerted to missed calls, and they can monitor and analyse response times remotely, ensuring that our residents receive prompt and efficient care.

Sophisticated governance and quality control processes

At our care home, we use advanced digital management systems to employ the most sophisticated governance and quality control processes. By extracting data from all of our systems, we create regular reports and alerts that help us monitor and improve the quality of care that we provide. Our managers and directors have access to a real-time dashboard that provides critical information about each resident’s health and well-being. We produce a wide range of daily, weekly, and monthly reports that are reviewed in great detail, not only to ensure that we are meeting all necessary requirements but also to proactively identify areas where we can improve our residents’ quality of life.

Proxy access

Our care home also utilises a proxy access system, which enables online prescription raising from GPs, as well as online ordering and tracking of medication orders and deliveries. By eliminating the manual process, this system ensures that everything is completed and delivered on time, which enhances safety for our residents. Moreover, this approach frees up our staff at the care home and saves time for the GP practice.

GP Connect

At our care homes, we prioritise the use of technology to provide the highest quality of care for our residents. GP Connect is one such service that enables our care home staff to view a resident’s clinical records on their GP’s system, and allows the GP to access Nourish data. By doing so, we improve the efficiency and quality of care provided to our residents and support better collaboration between healthcare professionals in terms of diagnosis and treatment.

Trusted Care enquiry management

We understand the importance of keeping track of new enquiries and monitoring occupancy levels in our homes. That’s why we use Trusted Care’s enquiry management system to accomplish these tasks. New enquiries go into the Trusted Care CRM, where we can easily keep track of them. This system helps us to better manage our care homes, ensuring that we always have a clear view of occupancy levels.

Asana

Our team is committed to improving safety and efficiency in our care homes, and we do so by using Asana, an online purchasing and task management platform. This centralised platform enables our teams to collaborate more effectively, share ideas and resources, and track progress on key projects. With Asana technology, we can immediately place orders for anything electronically and track when things have been delivered and contractors’ jobs completed.

Microsoft Dynamics Finance system and online payroll

At our care homes, we prioritise the safety and well-being of our residents, and that includes managing our finances and online payroll with the utmost care. To accomplish this, we use the Microsoft Dynamics Finance system, which is designed to help businesses keep track of their income and expenditure, as well as provide a way of managing budgets. This system allows us to manage our care home’s finances and online payroll efficiently and securely.

Judgement Index

We believe that the right values and attitude are crucial for providing the best care for our residents. To ensure that everyone who works here shares our core values, we employ the Judgement Index, a values-based recruitment and appraisal tool. The Index measures an individual’s values in relation to those required by the care industry and our organisation, and helps us identify how well-suited someone is to being a carer and to our company culture. By using this tool, we can ensure that our team members share our values and contribute to a positive and cohesive working environment.

Remote video meetings

To ensure that our care homes operate effectively and efficiently, our directors and managers provide support and guidance, share learning experiences and best practices, and conduct governance remotely when appropriate. We use Teams and Zoom meetings across our homes for this purpose, and we also use the same technology to facilitate meetings with relatives and many other people. Our use of remote video meetings allows us to maintain open communication and ensure that our residents receive the highest quality of care.

Online staff training

At our care homes, we understand the importance of training and development for our staff members. We provide online training to all of our employees so that they can enhance their skills and expertise, and then apply it to their work. Our mandatory training covers over 20 course subjects, and we expect each home to have at least 90% of all required courses completed at any one time. We also ask our staff to complete many other courses, and attendance and completion of these are monitored through an online system. Our commitment to training and development ensures that our team members are equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to provide the best care for our residents.

Moving forward with technology

Our care homes are committed to staying up-to-date with the latest technological advances to provide the highest quality of care for our residents. We believe that the advanced use of technology in our care homes is having a huge impact on both the lives of our residents and the way our staff are able to provide care.

The use of technology has resulted in increased independence and empowerment for our residents, providing them with enhanced entertainment, timely intervention of health concerns, and more effective communication with their loved ones and caregivers. These benefits are truly immeasurable and we are committed to continuing to explore new ways to enhance our care services.

Technology coming soon

As part of our commitment to improving the quality of life for our residents, we are pleased to announce that we are introducing additional technology to our care homes. We are currently exploring systems for falls detection and monitoring, pain detection and monitoring, as well as NHS remote monitoring applications. We are also collaborating with the NHS and other organisations on a national and regional level to support the implementation of other technologies, including shared care records.

We are dedicated to providing the best care possible for our residents and will continue to strive towards the integration of technology to enhance the delivery of our services.