We all know that communication is critical to delivering high quality, empathetic home support services.
Ensuring clients and their families are kept in the loop, while support workers feel fully armed with the right information at the right time, is paramount.
The Royal Commission into Aged Care called for the sector to urgently improve the quality, transparency and experience of care. Many recommendations contained in the Commission’s final report will only be achieved through the adoption of a digital care management system like Lookout.
Lookout has been launched to meet these requirements and simplify the transformative changes required to be a cutting edge care business. Lookout is the only digital care management platform built by care for care. It has been built on years of experience in the home care sector.
Lookout puts transparent communication between families, workers and organisation at the core of the product. This is facilitated through a number of key features:
Dynamic Help Plans
The dynamic Help Plan is a living, breathing document designed to evolve with the needs of your clients, their families. High quality Help Plans ensure that all stakeholders have the information they require all in one, secure digital record to deliver fantastic care. Help Plans be updated in real-time by your case managers. Changes are tracked for auditing purposes and then updates are published immediately to the support worker and client app and time-stamped so everyone can see how current and up to date they are.
Help Plans cover information such as who the client is, their likes and dislikes. It can tell support workers a little bit about their family, religion, culture and identity. The Help Plan also provides practical information about your clients living arrangements, how their home can be accessed to ensure a safe experience for support workers and clients.
The Help Plan gives staff a great place to quickly understand what is important to a new or unfamiliar client and what kind of assistance and support they are receiving.
Shared Notebook
Keeping client information in paper books, files, emails and in staff head is frustrating, at best, dangerous at worst. Missed communications can often be the difference between an early intervention and an emergency. Context is everything.
The shared collaborative notebook is a digital representation of a physical book and allows everyone to be kept informed. Support workers, staff and families can share notes via the app for better transparency, an ongoing recording and peace of mind for everybody involved. Key updates can be shared by your staff in the customer's notebook. Communication and collaboration with the customers' informal care network is encouraged to build a richer understanding of their needs and ensure that everyone has the information required to make the best decisions for their support outcomes. Because everything is logged and tracked digitally, information never gets lost between support workers, family, or staff and can be accessed at any time on any device.
Clients and their network will receive stories, updates and insights directly from your staff. When you have something important to share, clients and their families they will receive an email or app notification to let them know a new note has been posted in their notebook.
Should Knows/Must Dos
Your clinical, rostering or telehealth teams can publish ‘Should Know’s’ and ‘Must Dos’ an attached them to upcoming support worker visits to ensure any required actions are not only taken but also confirmed as being completed.
- Should Know’s can be used to convey important information that a support worker should be aware of before completing a client visit.
- Must Do's are important tasks that must be completed by a support worker during a client visit.
Response to Should Know's and Must Do's are monitored by the risk algorithm and can also trigger observations for investigation for staff or case managers – ensuring that tasks are not only complete, but important information gathered is prioritised and responded to in an appropriate and timely manner.