Introducing the Village of Care
Birdie’s vision for a future in which we all age with confidence
Why it's time to change
We’re experiencing the most fundamental demographic change of the century: our society is getting old, fast. In ten years’ time, more than one in five people in the UK will be aged over 65.
But the cracks have already begun to appear in how we cope with this change.
Caring for the elderly already represents 60% of NHS costs: despite this, there are already 1.5 million older people without the necessary support to live well.
Social care experiences the same seemingly impossible challenges, facing a £18.4 billion funding gap in order to meet demand.
The consequence is a huge number of preventable hospital admissions: 70% of A&E beds are occupied by older adults, many of whom will then face a long wait to be discharged.
The system is trying, but it’s already failing - and it’s only set to get harder.
And it’s not where we want to be
Today’s care system is centred on hospitals - but over two-thirds of us want to spend our later years at home, receiving care in the place we feel comfortable and safe.
And it’s more than just the impact on the individual - empowering older people to stay in their own homes has been shown multiple times to be not only cost-effective for our health system, but to have better overall outcomes.
So what now?
We all know by now that relying on the government and the NHS solutions presents a long and frustrating battle for funding and urgency. Simply put, ‘the cavalry isn’t coming’.
So what can be done? At Birdie, we believe that caring for an ageing society requires us to rebuild our system of care around the patient. In other words, “it takes a village”.
It takes a village
We’re all familiar with the phrase ‘it takes a village’ in how it relates to raising children.
Rather than one or two parents struggling to be everything to their child - and having to learn the complexities of child-rearing from scratch along the way - they turn to not just the help, but the collective wisdom, of parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, friends, doctors and neighbours.
We believe that providing the kind of care that makes ageing a period of life to be celebrated needs the same approach.
To deliver the kind of care that lets all age with dignity, we must first transform this disjointed health and social system into a connected, collaborative 'village'. This would focus on the individual in their community and work in their best interest.
This connection then empowers us to revolutionise care delivery with data-driven 'collective wisdom'. At present, our siloed care system confines learning to individual professionals and keeps care reactive, missing daily opportunities to enhance outcomes and older people's lives through spotting patterns in conditions, responses and outcomes...
The future 'village of care' can change this. Technology's capacity to turn billions of data points into insights brings 'collective wisdom' to life, empowering everyone in the village to transform outcomes.
The has revolutionary potential across our health and social care system. Older adults can confidently age at home, supported by proactive, personalised care that dramatically improves their health outcomes and eases the strain on the NHS.
Welcome to the Village of Care
The Village of Care is made up of ‘three Cs’
This is the ‘care in the community’ not just made real, but made smarter. In bringing this village together not just in function but in intelligence, we have the unique opportunity to transform the way we live our later years.
The centre
The empowered individual
The village starts with repositioning the care recipient and their families at the centre, empowering them to have choice and control over how they give and receive care.
The circle
Networked ‘neighbours’
The village has every partner in the care system - from from care professionals to family members, hospitals to telemedicine - connected as part of an ‘always-on’ community that embraces care as part of a long-term healthy lifestyle, not just when a crisis occurs.
The connection
Technology that creates a system of collective wisdom
The power of the village of care lies in it how different ‘neighbours’ work together seamlessly around the needs of the individual. This is where innovative technology is pivotal, forming the network that not only brings everyone together, but harnesses data and feedback loops to create a system of intelligence: our ‘collective wisdom’ as a village.
Join us on the journey
At Birdie, we’re working to be the “connection”: the technology that gives life to the village of care - and here’s how we plan to be part of this change.
1. Empowering community care providers
Our work starts with the “neighbour” that has the potential to make the biggest impact on the lives of older people: community care providers.
In the face of rising costs and capacity constraints, the future of care is at home. However, legacy technology platforms fail to support care providers in meeting the ever-increasing demand for care, focusing on digitising existing paper processes rather than rethinking what those processes should be.
This means that the first step on the road to the village is to unlock the power of community care providers. Our platform is designed to be the intelligent solution for care, having been built upon the largest data set of its kind in Europe, combined with the knowledge drawn from thousands of partnerships across the circle of care.
This creates a platform that goes beyond digitising processes - instead becoming a knowledgable and trusted partner, providing the intelligence needed to run healthier businesses and deliver better outcomes.
2. Unlocking the power of data
Powering millions of homecare visits every month creates the opportunity to do what no-one has ever done before: create an intelligent system that transforms the very nature of how care is delivered. This the ‘collective wisdom’ that is the true power of the village.
Through the billions of data points collected across assessments, care plans, tasks, outcomes and observations, we’re building a system of ‘care intelligence’ that unlocks the ability to provide a real-time understanding of changing needs, and can prompt proactive care actions, measuring and evaluating their impact to be able to drive further improvement.
3. The village in action
The last step is to be the technology that brings together the other ‘neighbours’ of the village: the other care providers, purchasers and prescribers that comprise the village of care.
The result is the world’s most advanced network of care for older adults, delivering a cost-effective and intelligent care journey that places the recipient squarely at the centre of this new ‘village’.