Social care is becoming increasingly innovative at a time when connectivity will be critical to provide the joined-up care and communication the sector needs.  We are moving away from paper-based care plans and paper-based lead management and starting to look at how other sectors, like the hotel and hospitality sector, have been managing their systems and clients for decades.

Autumna has identified 5 key changes that it thinks are going to make a difference.

• D.A.D (Dashboard for Accelerated Discharge). Communication between hospital discharge teams and social care is now available through D.A.D. The system can create a shortlist of available providers within 60 minutes of a hospital discharge team request.  D.A.D replaces the blanket request for a bed often sent to multiple providers, with a targeted, pre-qualified enquiry, including all of the information needed to confirm whether there is an available bed for that individual patient. D.A.D is a time saver for both discharge team and provider and will reduce discharge delays by days and potentially weeks.

• Lead Management. Lead management for providers continues to improve with the increasing use of APIs which drop leads directly into a provider’s CRM.  No more delays or lost leads.  Autumna estimates that 30% of leads are lost, or actioned too late, if they are sent to a home manager’s email, rather than a centralised system.

• Live Ratings.  For the first time a care seeker can see what families and visitors to a care home thought about that service 30 minutes ago!  This is transformational on several levels. Providers no longer need to chase reviews. They are generated without any input from the provider as the visitors signs out of the care home. It’s not unusual for 50 – 90 ratings a month to be gathered in this way.

• Book a Respite Stay in Advance.  The ability to book 2 weeks respite several months ahead has the potential to be transformational for care seekers who, until now, have had to hope that their chosen care home has availability the week before they want to go on holiday. Autumna thinks this will be very popular and provide a healthy pipeline of clients who have stayed for respite and then return when a permanent placement is needed.

• Special Offers.  We are increasingly seeing providers offering promotions such as ‘2 weeks for the price of 1’ or discounts for moving in before a certain date.  This is reminiscent of the hotel and hospitality sector which, in effect, is exactly the service providers offer – just with the addition of care.  Potential care seekers are responding well to these initiatives and Autumna expects to see it become more widespread across the sector.

As care seekers who are more comfortable with the digital world feed through into social care, it is clear that the sector is responding. Autumna applauds the operators and organisations who are at the vanguard of this change.

ENDS

Autumna provides completely impartial advice and does not take referral fees from providers. It aims to improve transparency and standards across the entire care for older people sector. Following its establishment in 2019, over 2.5 million care seekers each year now access Autumna’s directory of over 26,000 care providers.

To find out more contact Debbie Harris on 01892 335330 or email: debbie@autumna.co.uk