An effective care home promotes a good quality of life for all its residents. It ensures that the care is delivered in a respectful way and everyone’s health and safety are effectively managed. Over here we discuss a few practices that care homes have implemented to effectively manage their operations –
1. Streamlined medication administration
Medication administration is an important part of delivering quality patient care. Taking steps to improve the various processes involved in medication administration (including prescribing, documenting, transcribing, dispensing, administering, monitoring, and reporting) helps lower the risk of medication errors.
Many care homes in the UK have shifted from paper-based MAR sheets to eMAR to prevent medication errors. To know how eMAR streamlines medication administration, watch this video
2. Competence and punctuality of care staff
The everyday activities of residents, like taking medication, meals, and physical activities, are heavily dependent on care workers. Thus, it’s important to hire well-trained, passionate and punctual care workers to ensure that the residents receive care that is safe. An effective care home regularly conducts training sessions and encourages peer-to-peer knowledge transfer.
3. Catering to the individual needs of the residents
To do this, care workers must understand and know each individual’s life history. Involving residents’ family can also help care workers create a personalised care plan. Effective care homes also have processes in place to monitor and cater to the changing needs, health, and wellbeing of the residents.
4. Choices around quality food
A good care home offers a varied choice of diet. Also, they document individual food preferences as part of their care plan. The care staff ensures that healthy snacks and drinks are provided to the residents between main meals. Mealtimes are an important part of the day for residents – which is why good care homes regularly ask their residents and relatives for suggestions on improving mealtimes and also ensure that the ideas are implemented.
