Case Study: St Bernards

St Bernards is a family run, residential care home in Solihull, providing long-term care, respite care and day care services for the elderly. We caught up with Claire, the Director at St Bernards, to discuss the adoption of Nourish’s digital care planning system.

They have been using Nourish for around two and a half months now and are already noticing the changes. Claire shares with us some of their main concerns about making the switch to digital, and what outcomes they’ve seen so far.

I was concerned about the reliability of electronic care planning, specifically the dependency on internet connection. I was also concerned that staff would feel overwhelmed by the new technology. 

The team explained that we would still be able to use the system even if the WiFi went down and it would automatically update once connection has been restored. 

We were also talked through the system by staff and felt reassured by the fact that the system is very self-explanatory. Staff have been able to support each other in understanding basic tasks. 

With written care plans, it wasn’t really feasible to record information on comfort rounds or moods, for example. But now, I would say that we collect more detailed information and that professional reports are readily available. 

Writing up care reports was previously very time consuming, but now staff can complete reports as they go throughout their shift. In doing so they are able to spend more quality time with residents. We’ve also found it’s much easier to spot patterns in declining nutrition and weight loss when we report in this way. 

We’re getting there. We’re still working on clarifying certain ways of working to ensure we’re all on the same page, such as how we use certain reports and what for, and what things we need to alarm and so on. The Direct Messaging is excellent for communicating things to the whole team and ensuring those on annual leave don’t miss anything. 

Families have been impressed with the professional reports we can produce on the system, and they’ve said it’s noticeable staff are spending more quality time with residents. 

The impact on the team was an immediate effect, especially in regards to time saving and daily report completion. Everyone has been really supportive of one another and shown excellent team work.

Most definitely the reports. For some staff it could take a great deal of time, especially if they found written work difficult. Now it’s easy to dictate notes if preferred and use the drop down menus to complete fuller reports with more accuracy. 

It was very difficult to log food and fluid intake accurately at every meal time before Nourish. By checking interactions we are now able to ensure every meal is accounted for and identify trends quicker, such as weight gain/loss or if someone isn’t eating properly. 

I think that going forward our monthly reviews will be much easier as we can keep up to date with care plans and easily evidence this. 

The online support service is excellent and they are always very patient and clear in their explanations.

I love the search feature so I can easily pull up reports such as MUST and can review figures at a glance. 

I find the messaging a really reliable way to connect to the whole team and keep them fully informed of changes and updates. 

St Bernards offers a homely atmosphere and a dynamic approach to care. To find out more, visit www.stbernardscare.co.uk.