Ensure a successful move from paper

Person Centred Software founder and director, Jonathan Papworth, guides care homes on how to ensure a successful move from paper to electronic care records.

Like many care providers, you may be looking to move from recording care on paper to an electronic care system. Increasingly, regulatory pressures, funding issues and the disproportionate amount of time carers, nurses, and managers spend keeping paper records up-to-date is causing homes to move to electronic care.

By changing to electronic records, you can easily use the information to shape the way your service delivers care whilst improving the quality of care. It can also help you to demonstrate your quality of care to regulatory bodies.

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While it may feel intimidating, choosing and implementing an effective electronic system is easier than you think. These six steps should help you move forward with any technology:

Step 1: Decide your primary goal
Identify your primary goals, e.g. GDPR and wanting to keep care records secure and compliant, but still accessible to staff.

Step 2: Assess the challenges
Consult staff who are closest to residents about areas that could be made more efficient and effective and think differently about how to evolve working practices.

Step 3: Do your research
Visit trade shows and conferences to meet providers plus talk to other care homes about the technology they’ve tried or use.

Step 4: Shop around
Once you’ve found providers, ask for a site visit to see the system in action before inviting the provider in for a demonstration.

Step 5: Arrange demonstrations
Arrange demonstrations of at least two systems, more if possible, and prepare questions to ask.

Step 6: Manage the change
Once you’ve chosen your system, involve your people so they support the changes and, if possible, appoint champions.

Read the detailed version of ‘Six Steps to Implement Technology’: www.personcentredsoftware.com/six-steps