people and businesses that have persevered in 2020 have been those equipped to
safely adjust to emergencies. The year has seen more than its share of
aggressive, natural phenomena, such as wildfires, tropical storms and flooding,
and winter will soon bring powerful snowstorms and extreme cold.
Home care agencies and front-line staff must navigate all of these natural challenges, to say nothing of the ongoing battles with COVID-19. The emotional, psychological and logistical challenges of the pandemic are draining for home health staff, who themselves are already feeling taxed by the industry’s staffing shortages. Coupled with additional, external emergencies, this scenario can leave these staff members exhausted and with shaken confidence, if their organization does not provide adequate tools to support their daily needs for workplace safety.
By
their very nature, emergency situations are unplanned and perhaps
unpredictable. Yet solutions exist. Preparation and successful adaptation
during an emergency is possible, and rests with a well developed readiness plan
that addresses both immediate responses and post-emergency phases.
All
phases of an emergency situation can be optimized through the integration of
technology, both hardware and software, to deal with the chaos and upheaval
that inevitably comes.
Tools
that optimize six key areas of safety preparation — coordination,
collaboration, communication learning management, risk management and data
analytics systems — are essential for success. Here is a look at how home-based
care providers can employ technology to improve each of these six areas on the
path to emergency preparedness.
Care coordination
Home-based
care providers need software tools that enable patient-centric care in the most
cost-effective place: a patient’s home. And between sudden shifts in patient
schedules, the need to triage essential service patients, a reduction in
staffing and the potential increase in patient volume, the ability to
coordinate care across settings has never been more important.
A
software solution such as the one from CellTrak can give them the ability to
seamlessly coordinate care and deliver sustainable, measurable value in the
short- and long-term. This ensures that patients get the care they need when
they need it, while giving staff the hours they need for work security.
Care collaboration
Care
coordination requires consistent collaboration, whether within a health care
team or across multiple teams. The ability to connect people to each other at
the last minute is critical to a successful response in an emergency situation.
Whether that includes online collaboration tools, insight into the patient care
plan or access to a shared electronic health record, collaboration among the
team will ensure the best possible outcomes for the patient, especially when
uncertainty arises.
Communication
Collaboration
is impossible without communication, and during an emergency, communication
tools are perhaps the most important technology a home-based care provider has.
Email communication about impending dangers, secure messaging regarding sudden
changes in patient condition and real time alerts and notifications of changes
to schedules are all essential to staff members feeling supported and in the
know about any evolving emergency situation.
Learning Management
During
an emergency situation, changes in care delivery practices are common. Those
changes can be tricky for new staff who are seeing new patients, and require
agencies to provide additional education to these staff members about care or
new protocol implementations.
In
all of these situations, access to online education that is available to the
staff in real time, when it suits them, enhances the educational uptake and
eases the burden of the knowledge transfer and translation process.
Risk Management
In
a home environment where care is being administered, technology that supports a
shift to real-time knowledge about what is happening in the field can be
life-changing. Real-time alerts and notifications around key service delivery
factors — such as late starts, missed care and clinical alerts — allow for
real-time intervention and response before a negative patient or staff
experience actually happens.
Data Analytics
Now
more than ever, having real-time data at your fingertips is fundamental to making
the most informed decision regarding staff, patients and impact on the
organization, in both the immediate and future context. Data warehouses with
business intelligence tools are key to prospective, retrospective and
predictive analytics that every organization needs.
While
emergency situations create chaos, access to and understanding of data
analytics can create calm, and drive the coordination, collaboration,
communication, learning management and risk management that agencies need to
continue to ensure safe, quality care provision for patients, a safe working
environment for staff and sustainability for the organization.
To
learn more about how CellTrak can help your organization with emergency
preparedness, visit
www.celltrak.com.
The post [Sponsored] Emergency Preparedness: 6 Areas to Consider for Home-Based Care Technology appeared first on Home Health Care News.
