Top auditing challenges and how VCare can help overcome them
Aged Care management frequently deal with a range of challenges when it comes to operating in the residential care industry. Aged Care facilities need to be on the lookout for more efficient ways to manage daily, weekly, monthly and yearly tasks. Delivering the highest quality of care should be the main priority for all aged care providers. By continuously developing and improving internal processes, your facility can offer a world-class level of care to all residents.
Electronic care management systems such as VCare have a single point of data entry, which results in information always being up to date and readily available in seconds.
Reporting
Paper-based data collection processes are slow, and difficult to collate and report on. This results in data that is not in a form that is easily maintained for timely and effective reports. It can also result in reports not being up to date or missing critical detail. Within VCare there are multiple reporting options ranging from analysing falls to being able to plan care items and identifying ongoing risk areas.
Identifying and reducing falls risk
Identifying and reducing the falls risk for residents can be a extensive challenge for Aged Care Facilities. It can also compromise care for vulnerable residents. Incident information can be entered by all staff at any time, reviewed by management and incident reports can be extracted from the data entered. Managers can also receive instant notification of any incident that have occurred by email.
Duplication of clinical information
The primary challenge for clinical management is the duplication of clinical information. Processes may be completed more than once resulting in inaccurate reporting and wasted additional time and effort. Another challenge is the visibility of clinical items that have been completed, due or are overdue. VCare allows the review of completed, in progress and overdue care items. Triggers and checklists can be set to ensure care actions are completed. VCare can help with performance management as it maintains a record of the task, date, time and who completed the work. The assessments and events functionality can have built-in decision trees and pathways which aid in critical thinking. ‘Help’ text in assessments can prompt staff and guide their clinical decision making as well.
Comprehensive and personalised care plans
One of the most significant challenges that facilities face is the need for care plans to be comprehensive and personalised. Care plans often miss residents individual preferences, and changes are not signed or dated. Not completing care plans within a particular timeframe could result in a finding or partial finding within an audit. The care plan platform allows for Long Term and Short Term Care Plans to be personalised using customised & pre-populated care items. Automatic reports for care plan updates, evaluations and GP reviews ensure completion in the required timeframes.
Incomplete assessments
Incomplete assessments are a major challenge for retirement villages and aged care facilities. The assessments have the ability to have mandatory fields ensuring the user completes all critical sections before the assessment can be marked as complete. VCare can also identify key risk areas for each resident which allows you to monitor any ongoing changes for that particular resident.
Visibility and accuracy of information
Challenges with progress notes can include visibility and accuracy of information. Issues with visibility and accuracy results from Illegible handwriting, not recording designation/time/date and English as a second language. All progress notes written by care staff, GPs and allied health members are in one area. This gives higher visibilty and ease of access when retrieving progress notes. Progress notes are legible and additional information such as date, time and the staff member who entered the note is automatically recorded.
“I would recommend VCare – very professional and it has incredible reporting functionality for us. I also like the global view as you don’t feel so disjointed. Just the incident reporting alone is going to save me hours of work.”
“When we had our audit in May the auditors were very complimentary about VCare and how easy it is to follow.”
“Monitoring and auditing can be done from my office and I don’t have to go over to the site.”
VCare has been built specifically for New Zealand’s growing residential care market. Call us today to see how we can help your facility improve your internal processes and offer the highest level of care to your residents.
