The month of October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. This month is dedicated to developing resources and information for companies to use when discussing online safety with their customers and employees.
In our modern days of technologies, there are more resources and tools to use than ever before. So it can be hard to know good ones from the not-so-good ones! No matter what level you are in within the Care Industry it is tough, but there are resources out there to help.
Writing your first ever Care Plan can be a daunting task! So, start with the basics, what is a care plan? A care plan is a group of documents written and formulated on behalf of an individual to be used primarily by their care provider. This will usually include risk assessments.
Businesses especially care companies are process-driven and processes are fuelled by forms! And that is why we are extremely excited about our new update which includes: Form Builder, Delay Reports, Urine Output report and more!
It can be very difficult to find good, trustworthy care employees! We ran a successful recruitment campaign at Care & Carers which helped with providing safe and high-quality care and substantial growth. Here are five points that can help run a successful recruitment process.
How frequently a care management software is updated demonstrates the software provider's dedication to enhancing the system and listening to client feedback. As a care provider, we are aware that even seemingly insignificant details may have a significant impact on how well a service is handled.
When you’re managing a care company you’re constantly in search of tools, practices, and people who can help you do your job more efficiently. In fact, when you run a business, you want your business not only to survive but also to flourish. Some of the things that can help with growth and survival strategy could be incredibly easy.
Working in the care profession for many years, first as a carer and then as the service manager for a thriving home care company, Care & Carers, has shown me that technology can make working in care less stressful and more effective. Having witnessed the drive to go digital by many care providers I am sharing my experience on what makes the best care management software.
We developed a care management software, which we use to run our own care businesses. As a result, we are regularly upgrading it. A short search of the App Store or Google Play Store for other care management systems will reveal how frequently Careberry is updated in comparison to other care management platforms.
Invoicing is extremely important to any business. Doing it properly and efficiently can help run a business smoothly, avoid problems with clients and ensure cash flow! But it is a time-consuming task and you can easily run into problems. How long would it take you to invoice 30 clients every week?
Alongside Careberry, we run a multi-award-winning home care service and a care home. As a result, we receive feedback on a daily basis from carers, care managers, clients and their families. Furthermore, Careberry customers regularly provide us with feedback and wish lists, as well as ideas. Thus, our updates aim to make the lives of care providers easier.
Shailesh Patel is an experienced pharmacist whose primary focus is on managed care settings. He is the Managing Director of Pharmacyspace and has advised Careberry on medication management and electronic Medication Administration Records (MARs) over the past few years. The administration and management of medicines is an important part of the care process
When we made Careberry available to other care providers, I knew that as a Care Provider, we would be able to give value to any other care provider that used it. On the other hand, I was a little worried that other care providers might regard Care & Carers as a competitor and overlook the benefits of a system created by a care provider!
It's extremely difficult for a Registered Manager to receive Outstanding in one or more of the 5 key areas that the Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspects. Donna, who runs the respected Community Care Company Oxford House, is one of these managers! As a result, her opinion and experience are quite valuable. Donna's blog is a pleasure to read!
When selling a care management platform, salespeople may knowingly or unconsciously make system implementation appear to be exceedingly simple. In actuality, we purchase a system to automate incredibly difficult and time-consuming processes including rostering, care delivery monitoring, medication management, HR functions, and billing. As a result, the system is and should be data-driven, and the platform will not magically automate our operations and processes unless the data is supplied into it.
I've founded and run two award-winning care firms, and I've helped many others overcome obstacles to deliver high-quality care. Based on my personal experience, I've compiled a list of 16 points that I feel can lead to the demise of a care company if ignored. If they are taken seriously, on the other hand, they can result in low employee turnover, high employee engagement, and high customer satisfaction. They are as follows:
The importance of family involvement in the care of loved ones cannot be overstated. However, given how hectic life can be for all of us, it can be difficult. We believe that a comprehensive care management platform should make it easier for families to participate in the care of their loved ones from the moment we started working on Careberry
We understand how critical it is for carers to be able to log in to their mobile app easily in shortest time possible. As a result, we're thrilled to announce that Biometric Authentication has been added to our mobile app, making it easier for carers to log in and get on with their daily tasks!
An exploitable vulnerability has been discovered in Apache Foundation Log4j2 ('Log4j2') that could allow attackers to gain access to IT systems and launch ransomware attacks. This is a global vulnerability that affects numerous organisations all over the world. Software programmes use Log4j2 to process activity logs, and it is incorporated in many systems, including those used in adult social care. In Careberry, we don't use Log4j2.
Careberry originated as a home care provider, giving us a unique perspective on the elements that a homecare platform must have in order to run a successful and efficient service. As a result, we set out to design an all-in-one care management platfom!
After working in care for many years, it can be tough to construct a neat and effective rota, but with our rostering system, it's a breeze! By using Careberry today, you can see why our all-in-one care management software has won so many awards.
Careberry is a system that is extremely beneficial to my job. The rotas are simple and time-saving, and they're simple to alter and rearrange. Staff can request yearly leave and check how many hours they are working, which is even another time-saving benefit!
In the near future, care providers that do not use care management software will be left behind and regarded unimportant. Does this, however, imply that we should use any care management platform? Is a superb care management software truly going to help you get where you want to go?
When it comes to managing your care service, Careberry is designed to make your life easier! Not only have we combined basic functionality like rostering, care planning, recruitment, medication management, payroll, and invoicing, but we've also included fantastic features like a library where you can save all of your policies, incident reporting, real-time reporting, and care visit monitoring!
Our goal has always been to not only provide the most comprehensive care management platform possible, but also to provide piece of mind to our customers by establishing a large safety margin. By implementing Identity Server, we have future-proofed Careberry and laid the groundwork for providing our customers with the service they deserve.
Careberry is a cloud-based platform, which means it can be accessible at any time and from any location, meeting all of your demands when working remotely. Your caregivers and clients will each have their own interface, ensuring that they have access to real-time information. From wherever they are, loved ones may log in and be comfortable that their family member is being looked after.
Careberry makes it easier to deal with day-to-day challenges in homecare in an effective and safe manner. We have less stress during this time now that we are utilising Careberry because everything is transparent, lowering the likelihood of errors. We can provide out of hours support with ease as there is open access to all carers and clients records that I need to support the team and service users.
We knew it would be tough to create an all-inclusive care management platform, but we believed it was the only way to make owning and managing a home care business enjoyable. Rostering, care planning, care monitoring, recruitment, billing, timesheets, reporting, and even policies and procedures are all handled by Careberry. There is no other Care Management Platform that can do all of these things, and even if one does emerge, it will not be based on our unique hands-on experience.
After developing and running five care companies, we set to design and develop Careberry. So, resolving the daily challenges faced by care managers, care coordinators, care workers and care owners were our main goal. Therefore, we got these key people involved and asked them to share with us their views and their experiences. We drew up a list of challenges and kept refining and reviewing them over a period of 24 months. We also spoke with other key individuals such as CQC inspectors and service users. In fact, the CQC inspector who was dealing with our registration suggested several amendments which made the care planning and obtaining consent process more robust. Here are the key themes that helped us map our daily scenarios to the architecture of Careberry and how it can help you put together a “due diligence checklist” before sourcing your care management platform: 1) Recruitment: recruiting carers from within local communities is the key to any care company’s success. The point that you can recruit through your platform and then seamlessly allocate your successful candidates to their home care visits within a fraction of seconds would make a world of difference. No transferring of data or keeping documents in a hard drive or on a separate platform! When developing this aspect of the platform we ensured the recruitment process is complies with CQC procedures. For example, putting steps in place to make sure DBS, car insurance and nationality documents are checked, and data could be traced back to demonstrate compliance. 2) Clients: Managing clients’ data within the same platform where the care workers’ data is processed is extremely important. What we have done in Careberry, which is unique and can save you a lot of time, is that you can feed whatever information that you gather about a client to the platform and it will automatically generate a care plan which is shared with the carers in real time. Each time you update the data a new care plan is generated and previous versions are kept demonstrating compliance with reviews. 3) Rostering: complexities around rostering can derail a business, demotivate staff, slow down the growth and increase the risks associated with care delivery. On the other hand, a good e-rostering system can help your services run smoothly and efficiently. That is why we were determined to get it right. 4) Medication management: A care management platform without medication management system is not complete. When developing our medication management system, we even went further and incorporated the NHS bank of over 50,000 medicines to make the job of preparing MARS charts easy and straightforward. Additionally, we have enabled staff and family members to add medications to the platform, which can then be checked and approved by another person. 5) Invoicing and Timesheets: Invoices and timesheets should be created effortlessly. That is why we have automated these as well. So as soon as care is delivered, Careberry will take care of invoicing for that care. We have made things easier by incorporating Go Cardless in the system. So, if you are serving self-funders it is extremely easy to instruct them to set a direct debit within the system so invoices are received and paid regularly. 6) Notes/Reports: Reports and notes on clients’ conditions and changes are only useful if they are shared within the team and with the families and are acted on. Careberry publishes the notes in real time. It also allows the office team to write notes, comment and communicate with carers, clients and families. Leave notes and memos to appear only at certain times and on visits, which can enhance the quality of care, increase safety and give reassurance to business owners and customers. 7) Policies: Care is highly regulated and well-run services not only have clear policies and procedures in place, but also make them accessible to their staff. The idea of having a policy book available at the office for carers to access when and as required is outdated! Therefore, we added a feature to Careberry so all policies and procedures are added to the system seamlessly and made available to the staff within their accounts. 8) Monitoring of visits: Before setting up Care & Carers my aim was to be able to pick up my mobile at any time and see the status of our planned visits immediately. Whether the carers have departed or are with the clients or have completed their visits. Then I thought that was good, but not good enough. Therefore, we made things to run in the background and only be alerted when necessary. 9) Multi-branching: Due to the nature of care the proven model of delivery is to start locally then branch out geographically. To speed up growth and put business owners in control we have developed Careberry in a way that you can create a branch within the platform within 30 seconds. It gives the management team control over all branches. You are able to see how each branch progresses, share resources and plan strategically. This is an excellent feature for ambitious business owners who wants to expand while staying in control or for existing multi-branch care agencies that want to bring consistency to their service and run them more efficiently. Careberry enables companies to share carers between branches, have an oversight over the growth of each branch and save time and money by centralising their backup office. 10) New features: Time is a precious resource. On average we have added a new feature to Careberry every two to three weeks over the past 12 months! Features such as enabling staff and families to add medicines, reporting incidents via mobile app and making relevant alerts appear on staff mobiles every time a shift starts are examples that make a care service safer and easy to run!
Benjamin Howard 
Emily-Rose Trott 
Hossein Sharifi 
Shailesh Patel MSc MRPharmS 
Donna Doyle 
Callea Sunderland