The Care Quality Commission (CQC) plays a key role in regulating the safety and quality standards of health and social care services in England. As discussed in our previous blog,
CQC conducts frequent inspections at care homes, which include discussions with employees, evaluating care, and examining documents. The goal is to gain a thorough understanding of the level of services delivered.
The CQC website publishes the care home inspection reports with its overall rating. It will also include details of the areas where your care home is performing well as well as the areas that demand improvement. The evaluation report will also convey information on how your care home performed against each key line of enquiries.
If the CQC discovers that your care home is offering a substandard level of care to its clients, it has an administrative mechanism in place to protect people who are getting care. They have the authority to issue warning notices, which compel the care provider to produce an action plan outlining how they intend to improve. If the allegations are serious enough, the CQC has the authority to suspend or cancel your care home’s registration.
A CQC inspection is a significant event for your home care organisation; every system, structure, and practice in your service will be evaluated. However, if you plan ahead of time and are satisfied that you are giving excellent service to your clients, it might be an opportunity to receive a positive report that displays your devotion and effort.
Leveraging technology can help you improve your care home’s CQC ratings. Most care home providers shy away from investing in care management software or other technology solutions owing to various reasons such as budget issues, digital illiteracy of employees, connectivity issues and more.
As a care home agency or social care provider, what you should do is examine each barrier to technology adoption. Conduct a detailed assessment to figure out the long-term impact and return on investment that digitization can bring to your care home.
Implementing technology solutions for your care home operations offer a plethora of benefits such as:
- Improved staff retention
- Eliminating paper trails
- Reducing manual errors
- Better management of evidence
- Improved operational efficiency
- Increased quality of care
Now let us examine how technology platforms such as JMS One can help you deal with CQC’s key lines of enquiries effectively.
Safe
Helping ensure key information is accurate and easy to share with caring professionals in real-time.
Paper records are likely to have errors, get misplaced or lost. However, with a software solution, it would be easier to manage important notices, notifications or alerts in real-time. Overdue tasks or evaluation reports can also be sent to personnel and management, ensuring a higher standard of safety for users.
Effective
Supporting effective communication and better resource management, particularly financial management
The ability to access digital records for each service user in seconds allows employees to give the most optimal treatment possible. Eventually, all healthcare providers will 'go digital.' It's not a question of if, but of when. The earlier you initiate the process of moving data to a digital environment or using software tools, the more successful and efficient your staff workflows and procedures will become.
Caring
Facilitating person-centred care and assisting staff in spending more time on the important things.
With care management software like JMS One, care homes can improve staff productivity by automating a majority of manual procedures. Freeing your employees from time-consuming and redundant paperwork and operational activities makes it possible to pay more attention to other crucial responsibilities. For instance, workforce management software can save your employees time, which can be devoted to providing high-quality, person-centred care to residents.
Responsive
Helping providers in becoming more proactive and receptive to changing requirements by assisting in the early detection of emerging dangers or issues.
Telemonitoring equipment can help caregivers respond to the changing demands of their patients. Care professionals can offer support sooner and potentially prevent a health disaster by using technology to detect alarming patterns or pinpoint a risk.
Digital care records have the advantage of being easily updated and shared with a patient's family, boosting collaboration and displaying responsiveness to an individual's preferences and skills.
Well-led
Supporting more comprehensive quality assurance through increased data analysis, collaboration, and information sharing.
Investing in new technology shows that you prioritise time savings, future-proofing care, and increasing efficiencies. Go for a feature-rich care management system that can provide you with detailed analytics. Data analysis is particularly useful in assisting management in making well-informed, data-driven decisions. For firms with several locations, this technology allows them to gather and compare data from various providers, providing a comprehensive picture. It can help to support and increase consistency in the delivery of care in certain situations.
Investing in the right software solutions help your care homes not only providing better care but also achieving excellent CQC ratings. If you are planning to make a move to a digital platform, then we would be happy to guide you every step of the way.
