5 ways domiciliary care software can benefit your homecare business

In this post, you'll discover 5 ways a domiciliary care software can benefit your agency.

Ever feel like you're trapped in a revolving door of problems?

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If you work in a domiciliary home care business, you’ll know how difficult it is to stay on top of everything, provide the best care, recruit enough staff and be ready for inspection.

One way you can manage your time better is by investing in care management software. But with so many options comes to home care software, what do you really need? And how do you know what to look for?

The benefits of care management software depend on your goals and the reason you need the software in the first place. 

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Domiciliary care rota software helps with visibility

If you’re struggling to keep your rostering in check, the first thing you’ll need is a home care rostering system. Rostering systems are a type of software designed to help with scheduling visits so you can make sure that every client is covered. 

Choosing rostering software for your home care agency will allow you to build schedules easily and allocate staff to visits. If you use a system like CarePlanner, StaffPlan and Cold Harbour, you’ll be able to integrate with Birdie too so your professional carers can see their visit schedules and care logs in one place. 

Domiciliary care software helps to be more person-centred

One key term used a lot in the care industry is ‘person-centred’.

It’s really important to your clients and the CQC that you make sure the care you provide is personal.

With a dom-care management system like Birdie, you can build personal profiles for each of your clients, and share these with your staff. You can include information like their needs, likes and dislikes, from their favourite lunch to their favourite board game, and how they like to be assisted. Your care staff will have access to all of these observations, right from their smartphones. 

That means no more referring to sheets of paper, and no matter who is making the call, everyone has the same up to date information at their fingertips.

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Home care software allows you to be more responsive

When the CQC rates your business, one key area they look into is how responsive you are to changing situations and needs. Care management software like Birdie can really help you in this area, especially when it comes to spotting issues and concerns early.

Birdie Alert Manager allows you to prioritise and filter your alerts, so important things like missed medication will flag as high priority so you can deal with them quickly. And, with a log of every alert and action that you took to rectify the situation, CQC evidencing is easy.

Elite Care, one of our partner agencies have really seen the benefit - they were recently awarded an Outstanding rating in responsiveness thanks to Birdie! Find out more about how they achieved it, here. ‍

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Domiciliary care software avoids medication errors

Medication errors can be the difference between a ‘Good’ rating and ‘Needs Improvement’. Your care may be excellent, but medication errors can lead to penalisation from the CQC. 

Birdie eMAR includes alert functionality so you can always see whether a medication has been administered and if it has been fully, partially or not taken at all - and for what reason. 

Plus, when you create your medication schedules with Birdie, there’s no need to free-type, check the packaging or old MAR charts for spellings. Birdie uses the official NHS database of medications (dm+d) which pulls medications directly from their database and populates them in your MAR charts for you, alongside their recommended doses. 

Home care software shares information faster

Making sure that everyone has the right information at the right time is crucial in the care industry. From GPs and district nurses to families, keeping everyone aligned is important in making sure that the right care is delivered - especially when circumstances change.

When you use a care management software, your notes, logs, care plans and medications records will be digitised, making them far more secure than paper notes. This also means you can keep everyone in the loop, in just a few clicks, keeping your clients safe. 

Ready to go paperless and get started with a domiciliary care software? Why not start with Birdie? Book a free demo today and we’ll help you understand the ways care software can benefit your business.