Abstract

Collecting and analysing timely and accurate information about the quality of care that is delivered to older people in residential homes is a challenge. Most current approaches to collecting this in-formation are manual, and add time, cost and human error to them. Interactive digital technologies have the potential to reduce the time consumed, cost and errors in these processes, which in turn can support resolution of an important social challenge. However, designing these interactions can be problematic. In this paper we report the use of a new interactive digital solution that was de-signed to improve the completeness and timeliness of care quality data that was collected from 233 residential nursing and care homes for older people in and around London. Use of the digital solution led to a significant increase in the numbers of residential homes that submitted the cor-rect care quality information by each quarterly deadline. However, qualitative evidence from the residential homes revealed low-level usability problems experienced by care staff that might be in-dicative of continuing usability issues in the care sector. The paper ends with lessons drawn to improve uptake of digital technologies in residential care.

Highlights

  • David is a married man with five children

  • This paper reports the first evaluation of a new web application called CarePulse to collect care quality information from over 200 residential homes

  • The web application was developed to extend digital technologies into a UK sector with little current digital support, and in particular to enable care agencies to predict care problems before these problems impact on the lives of individual older people with conditions such as dementia

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Summary

CARE QUALITY MONITORING

Delivering care of sufficient quality to the increasing numbers of older people in need of it has become a pressing issue for advanced societies. To seek to resolve this cost-benefit trade-off, a new care quality model was developed out of the NHS Outcomes Framework (Department of Health 2014) by Evalucom with NHS consumers, clinicians and service provider representatives who seek to monitor and manage residential homes that care for older people in the London region more costeffectively. The project team explored different new digital solutions to increase the timeliness and accuracy of care quality information, as well as to reduce the costs of its collection and subsequent analysis, whilst still operating within strict technology and resource constraints imposed by and on most residential homes. CarePulse and its user-centred design are described

THE CAREPULSE DIGITAL SOLUTION
The User-Centred Design Process
Background
The Resulting CarePulse Architecture
A Quick Walkthrough of CarePulse
Formative Evaluations of CarePulse
A SUMMATIVE EVALUATION OF THE REVISED VERSION OF CAREPULSE
Evaluation Method
Evaluation Results
CONCLUSIONS AND LESSONS LEARNED
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