Orchard Care Homes Trials Person Centred Software

Orchard Care Homes trialled two digital care planning systems in tandem and selected Person Centred Software’s Mobile Care Monitoring system.

Orchard Care Homes successfully implemented Person Centred Software’s Mobile Care Monitoring system across 60 care homes in 2018.

Orchard Care Homes wanted a system to help it transform its care records and improve the quality of care that it provides to residents.

Trial of Person Centred Software’s system

In 2017, Orchard Care Homes conducted a six-month pilot of Person Centred Software’s Mobile Care Monitoring system in two homes. This was alongside also trialing another electronic care planning system. After extensive testing and end user feedback, Mobile Care Monitoring was selected by Orchard Care Homes.

Selecting the strongest electronic care planning system

During the trial of Mobile Care Monitoring, Orchard Care Homes tested the ease of use of mobile recording for carers; the reporting function for managers; and the electronic care plans and assessments.

“Person Centred Software has the strongest electronic care system on the market,” says Sean Dickinson, project lead from Orchard Care Homes.

Sean led the trial of Mobile Care Monitoring and made the decision to implement it in all homes due to its strengths of ease of use for carers, and the maturity of the management information.

“Person Centred Software has the strongest electronic care planning system on the market.”

“The interface of the MCM Care App is intuitive and doesn’t require training to use. Our carers took to the system instantly, and we immediately saw an increase in quality and quantity of information recorded”, says Sean.

Sean continues, “The management side of the system has incredible ease of visibility; records are accessible and readable. When we suggested taking the software away at the end of the trial both managers joked that if we did, “the carers would kill you!”. Staff didn’t want to even think about the possibility of going back to handwritten paper care notes and charts after using Person Centred Software’s MCM system.”

Successful implementation of Mobile Care Monitoring

Once Mobile Care Monitoring was chosen, the implementation project began with a series of kick-off meetings and workshops to establish how the system would be configured to support Orchard Care Homes’ business and operational practices.

The initial meeting and workshops ensured that the people working on the implementation project, both from Person Centred Software and Orchard Care Homes, had the relevant skill sets to ensure that the software deployment practices aligned with the relevant clinical requirements, as outlined by Orchard Care Homes.

Then the team created a comprehensive deployment plan to ensure the project was maintained at a steady pace and to ensure that each home implemented was able to receive quality support from both the Orchard and Person Centred Software Project Team.

“The app is intuitive, our carers took to the system instantly. We immediately saw an increase in the quality and quantity of information recorded.”

Weekly project touch-point conference calls were scheduled between the Orchard Project Manager and Person Centred Software’s Project Lead to ensure project stability and governance.

For Orchard Care Homes, the ideal implementation rate of Mobile Care Monitoring was approximately 10 homes per month. Each care home had the first day’s training focused on teaching carers and nurses how to use the MCM Care App to evidence all aspects of care delivery; complemented with training for senior staff on monitoring all aspects of care using Mobile Care Monitoring.

Second phase of group implementation

The second phase of the project consisted of returning to each care home for an additional training day, a few weeks later. This training day was focused on training senior staff using the system to confidently create and review all the required resident risk assessments and care plans.

By February 2018, using the proven implementation method, Person Centred Software had smoothly delivered 10 homes so far, with all implemented homes using the system to full efficiency and recording a high number of care notes per resident per day within days of receiving implementation training.

By September 2018, Orchard Care Homes has successfully implemented Person Centred Software’s award-winning Mobile Care Monitoring system at all 60 homes.

Since implementing Mobile Care Monitoring, Orchard Care Homes has improved quality of care by 22%. Read the case study