Care to go Online?
Date published: 22nd December 2005
This month, some of North America's most prestigious and innovative companies will be attending the White House Conference on Ageing in Washington DC. They'll be showing off all sorts of gadgets and technologies that could help the USA look after its ageing population.
The ideas vary in their practicality. There's a system that monitors weight, restlessness and time in bed, for example. Its purpose is to predict when someone who's elderly or infirm will try to get up - hence, making sure a carer is on hand to prevent a fall.
But not all the technology on show springs from science fiction. Some is very much here and now, capable of delivering valuable benefits straight away. Take for example, the system one exhibitor has developed to improve care in nursing homes.
Online dispensary
He has a website that holds a care plan for each resident, dispensing records for medications and contact details for relatives, and so on. With the website, carers can interact with the system through a headset - responding to spoken commands, the system looks up data and reads it back to them.
The carers can also speak to the system to update records, eliminating any doubt as to whether residents have taken their medication, and making it much easier for staff to hand over to their colleagues at the end of their shift.
Valuable role
This is very much in line with our philosophy at A Recipe For Success - we believe in using technology as an enabler to provide the right e-business solutions for our clients so that they can reap the benefits of a robust system, straight away.
Everything about this system is 'here and now' - and it's just one of a wide range of examples that shows that websites and other technologies really do have a valuable role to play in improving the efficiency and smooth running of care organisations.
Giving you control
In fact, the majority of the components you'd need to build such a system are what we at A Recipe For Success use every day to deliver e-business solutions for use in other industries and to help business achieve growth and success. So if care is your business, why would you care to go online?
You could simplify record keeping and increase the chance that the information you hold about your business and your residents is accurate and up-to-date. You could easily establish different access privileges for different members of your team, restricting the ability to read or update aspects of a resident's record based on factors such as skill level and need to know.
Finding out online
Or you could reduce the need to answer questions from relatives by making information about their loved ones available to them online through a password-protected web site. They could even tell you when they plan to visit so you can adjust the timing of cleaning and other activities to maximise their time together.
As our customers have found, once you start to explore the possibilities, all sorts of ways to improve efficiency, quality and the customer experience come to light. Better still, having your own website and maintaining it doesn't cost a fortune.
When those who understand a business get together with those who understand what technology can deliver, great things can result. Would you care to miss out?
Jeff Hume spoke about the e-business opportunities available to the care industry at the Suffolk Care Provider Conference in Kesgrave, Suffolk on October 28, 2005. If you'd like to explore how our technology could improve your performance as a care provider, contact Jeff on 08458 409933.
The ideas vary in their practicality. There's a system that monitors weight, restlessness and time in bed, for example. Its purpose is to predict when someone who's elderly or infirm will try to get up - hence, making sure a carer is on hand to prevent a fall.
But not all the technology on show springs from science fiction. Some is very much here and now, capable of delivering valuable benefits straight away. Take for example, the system one exhibitor has developed to improve care in nursing homes.
Online dispensary
He has a website that holds a care plan for each resident, dispensing records for medications and contact details for relatives, and so on. With the website, carers can interact with the system through a headset - responding to spoken commands, the system looks up data and reads it back to them.
The carers can also speak to the system to update records, eliminating any doubt as to whether residents have taken their medication, and making it much easier for staff to hand over to their colleagues at the end of their shift.
Valuable role
This is very much in line with our philosophy at A Recipe For Success - we believe in using technology as an enabler to provide the right e-business solutions for our clients so that they can reap the benefits of a robust system, straight away.
Everything about this system is 'here and now' - and it's just one of a wide range of examples that shows that websites and other technologies really do have a valuable role to play in improving the efficiency and smooth running of care organisations.
Giving you control
In fact, the majority of the components you'd need to build such a system are what we at A Recipe For Success use every day to deliver e-business solutions for use in other industries and to help business achieve growth and success. So if care is your business, why would you care to go online?
You could simplify record keeping and increase the chance that the information you hold about your business and your residents is accurate and up-to-date. You could easily establish different access privileges for different members of your team, restricting the ability to read or update aspects of a resident's record based on factors such as skill level and need to know.
Finding out online
Or you could reduce the need to answer questions from relatives by making information about their loved ones available to them online through a password-protected web site. They could even tell you when they plan to visit so you can adjust the timing of cleaning and other activities to maximise their time together.
As our customers have found, once you start to explore the possibilities, all sorts of ways to improve efficiency, quality and the customer experience come to light. Better still, having your own website and maintaining it doesn't cost a fortune.
When those who understand a business get together with those who understand what technology can deliver, great things can result. Would you care to miss out?
Jeff Hume spoke about the e-business opportunities available to the care industry at the Suffolk Care Provider Conference in Kesgrave, Suffolk on October 28, 2005. If you'd like to explore how our technology could improve your performance as a care provider, contact Jeff on 08458 409933.
Tel: 0845 8 409933