Inhealthcare has created a new digital observations service for care homes to empower staff, cut time-consuming paperwork, improve data quality, reduce avoidable hospital admissions and support independent living.
The e-Obs service was designed in partnership with City Health Care Partnership CIC, which provides NHS community health and care services across
Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire, St Helens and Knowsley. CHCP operates the Rossmore Care Home for elderly, disabled and vulnerable residents in Hull.
Launched in June 2021, the service replaces a paper-based system with an enhanced, data-rich digital pathway. It gives clinicians direct access to a wide range of clinical information and enables them to monitor individual variations over time.
Offer personalised care for residents:
Clinicians refer residents to the e-Obs service along with information about what is ‘normal’ for them and which observations to record. These could include weight, mobility, diet, or bowel changes.
Care home workers take readings and report the results into the Inhealthcare professional app, a medical device registered with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
If any readings fall out of ‘normal’ range, the service automatically sends alerts to clinicians for assessment. Readings are also uploaded onto electronic patient records.
Reduce avoidable hospital admissions:
The service aims to empower staff, cut time-consuming paperwork, improve data quality, reduce avoidable hospital admissions and support independent living.
Care home workers and NHS clinicians use the service to record, share, analyse and respond to patient information. It replaces a time-consuming paper-based system which required manual data entry.
Identify early signs of deterioration:
Rossmore is an early adopter of technology in its care services. The home launched Inhealthcare’s NEWS (National Early Warning Score) service to monitor the vital signs of residents in 2018.
The service, which was updated to NEWS2 in February 2021, enables clinicians to identify early signs of deterioration and intervene to prevent conditions from worsening and avoid hospital admissions where possible.
Another layer of remote monitoring capability:
The e-Obs service can be quickly scaled up and rolled out to other care homes. It adds another layer of remote monitoring capability onto existing NEWS2 services and generates new insights into health and wellbeing trends.