Grassington House were an early adopter of Nourish, at the beginning of 2016, and saw early-on how they could enhance their care provision by supporting their team with electronic care planning.
Impact on leadership & management
Megan Read, the Owner and Manager of Grassington House, shares her experience of using Nourish for the last few years. “For me, it’s about having all your information in one place, which you simply can’t do on paper. Before everything was in different folders and it wasn’t accessible. It’s so quick to do audits now because I pull a report on everything and check what’s going on.”
“As a manager, I have a clear overview of what’s happening and can schedule whatever I need to, to make sure nothing gets missed. I no longer need to have files in the office, as everything is on Nourish. That means my office can be wherever I am, so I can check in wherever I need to and be able to see what’s happening in the home; that peace of mind is priceless.’
“This morning, for example, I was going through alarms and messaging how I wanted care to be changed based on the outcome of an assessment that was done and how our team needed to respond to it. As a manager I can literally prompt what information I want recorded from carers and when. The amount of detail I can now see in recorded notes is amazing compared to what it used to be on paper.”
Impact on the team
“My care team are now saving a lot more time. They used to have to write their notes in separate room away from the residents, which now they don’t have to. Now that our residents know what the mobile devices are for they are much happier with the new process; and our team like that they can sit with them and write the notes together. “
“It’s really just all about the time it saves them – not having to think what they need to write all the time as its all prompts and answering questions, and then they can add any extra information that they want. It really changed our culture of record-keeping, it’s now simply a seamless part of the care we’re giving and we can get our residents involved, talking to them about what they think is important to record.”
Impact on the residents
Megan really encourages her carers to be sociable and engage the residents when writing notes; this can mean sitting down with the resident, having a cup of tea and a real conversation about how the resident is doing.
“Our residents definitely prefer our using of Nourish over the traditional paper route, because it means the carers can be with them more. They aren’t able to read the devices with other people records, but it’s reassuring to have the care team around more. Carers can be sociable and engage with residents so they can contribute to their own notes, keeping them much more involved with their care. Beforehand, carers would have to spend time away from the residents at the end of the shift completing paperwork.”
“Nourish is also really useful for bi-annual reviews; I can hold a meeting in the lounge and connect my laptop to the main screen so we can all see the information and have a really good chat about the care plan with the resident – it’s a lot more involved, but also efficient, and residents like to be able to see their care plans so easily. It’s also a great way to keep the family involved, which people really value. As the care plan is in section, I can skip over any sections that the resident prefers not to share and we can focus on the aspects they want involvement in.”
“When I’m doing my care plan reviews, because I can see all of the notes recorded in the logs I can directly review and evidence what has been happening and why changes have been made. Otherwise, if I had pages and pages of daily records, I simply wouldn’t have the time to go through it all. You just couldn’t get that clear overview.”
Working with Nourish
“When we introduced Nourish, we experienced a genuine shift in culture and approach to care recording that supported our team and benefited our residents care. Nourish allows you to have a complete overview of how your home is running, which you simply can’t do on paper. Recording using the devices at the point of care makes care communication that much better. We’re all human and over a long shift supporting different residents, we can forget information. With Nourish, you record quickly as you go, to make sure none of that information is lost and is handed over to the team if it needs to be.
If you’re going to use Nourish, I’d definitely say maximise it to its full potential and move everything over; certificates, audits, training. I have been able to stop writing my endless to-do lists because Nourish does that for me.”
