Beritaz Care Residential Care Homes
Challenges before Access
Beritaz Care incorporates four care homes that provide nursing and residential care services for elderly people in Surrey and Hampshire in the United Kingdom. They operate 130 beds throughout their Springkell House, Chestnut Court, Ashton Manor and Robertson Nursing Homes.
One of Beritaz Care’s main goals is to provide consistent, quality care in warm, friendly and professional environments across their multiple homes. However, according to Beritaz Care Director, Kumar Gnanakumar, it was difficult to achieve this while using a disjointed paper-based system.
“From a management perspective, it was challenging for us to gain a transparent view of the organisation and effectively manage our four care homes while relying on manual processes,” Kumar said. “We needed to find a more effective way to better understand how all of our care homes were each performing to ensure that we were producing the right results as an organisation.”
Access’s Care and Clinical software: A progressive and flexible solution
It was important to Beritaz Care that they found an integrated care management system that would allow them to overhaul the way they managed the business, provide staff with instant access to comprehensive resident information, and in turn, enhance the quality of their care and support services.
“Ideally, we required a solution that focused on care planning and management, as opposed to a solution that was developed purely for administrative purposes,” Kumar said.
Beritaz Care was rigorous in their approach to finding the right technology. Kumar and his team committed 12 months to comparing various solutions in the market, with managers, deputy managers, nurses and carers from across the organisation participating in product demonstrations by numerous software providers. With feedback obtained from everyone that was involved throughout the process, the decision was unanimous.
“At the end of the day, there was no provider that could offer us a better system than Access’s Care and Clinical software,” Kumar said, which made the next step obvious. With the help of Access, Beritaz Care implemented the software into all four care homes, signifying a new direction for the organisation.
How Beritaz Care has grown with Access software
“This information can now be captured in real-time so we don’t have to allocate time for our staff to complete unnecessary documentation. This feature alone saves each nurse or carer up to six hours per week, which can immediately be used to provide care for residents” – Kumar Gnanakumar, Director.
Greater efficiencies in daily workflows
Prior to Access, staff at Beritaz Care were required to memorise the information associated with residents’ daily conditions, treatment, and care for up to six hours before they had the chance to manually update these details.
“It was impossible for staff to remember all of the details relating to each resident so by 1pm when they would be required to handwrite the residents’ progress notes, this information was already questionable,” Kumar said.
With Care and Clinical software, care and nursing staff can document events, interactions and other details at the point of care using tablets.
“Our progress notes are now accurate, timely, and reflect the care being delivered,” Kumar said. “Because this information can now be captured in real-time, we don’t have to allocate time for our staff to complete unnecessary documentation. This feature alone saves each nurse or carer up to six hours per week, which can immediately be used to provide care for residents.”
For a 35 bed care home, this equates to an impressive 12 hours each day that staff can be relieved from the documentation associated with resident progress notes.
“In fact, there was an occasion when our broadband connection went down for two days and our staff had to revert to the paper-based processes they had used before implementing Access’s software. They couldn’t believe how cumbersome it was and that we had used a manual system for so long,” Kumar said.
Simplified care planning
With the functionality of Care and Clinical software, staff at Beritaz Care can create, review and access care plans in electronic format, quickly and easily.
“Written care plans were always very time-consuming, repetitive and lacked details,” Kumar said “The risk of omitting essential details in care plans has been reduced due to integrated features in the software. Our care managers are impressed with the level of accuracy and comprehensiveness of the data.”
Kumar also explained that electronic care plans had made it possible to reduce further risks associated with staff handwriting that was not always legible.
Reduction in duplication of documentation
“There are also the drastic time savings that have come with a reduction in duplication,” Kumar said. “Previously, staff had to complete 20 or more separate forms for a single resident. On every form, they were required to write out basic information such as the resident’s name, address, date of birth and national insurance number.”
Care and Clinical software has supported a reduction in data duplication by enabling staff to customise electronic forms and automate basic information for each resident, and easily print these as necessary.
With more streamlined processes in place, Beritaz Care has maintained accurate, high quality client records, which has led to increased risk management and improved care outcomes for residents.
Increased accuracy and accountability in reporting
According to Kumar, the single biggest reason he would recommend Access’s Care and Clinical software is the ability to manage the organisation remotely, with 24 hours a day, seven days a week access.
“The management reporting features has allowed me to supervise and manage the business from wherever I am,” Kumar said.
The software merges information from every facet of the electronic system to provide management with instant visibility and access to critical information and data. Managers and authorised users can retrieve configurable care quality reports, while tailored dashboard reports display trends and performance in real time.
“The software ensures that we effectively manage key risk areas and identify issues that require a resolution – all in order to ensure our residents are receiving the highest level of care and support. “With greater transparency across our care homes, I can review our key performance indicators and benchmark accordingly.”
