How To Choose The Right Software For Domiciliary Care

What is domiciliary care software?

First we need to clarify what we will be discussing here. There are a number of different bits of kit that people might refer to as ‘domiciliary care software’ or ‘home care software’, including everything from compliance and reporting software to eLearning.

However, when most when people say domiciliary care software they are talking about domiciliary care rostering systems and electronic care planning software, so those are the types of system we will be focusing on in this article.

At my last count there at least 15 different home care rostering software companies supplying UK domiciliary care providers. Some of these are established with thousands of care providers using their software, such as CarePlanner, Access PeoplePlanner and StaffPlan, while others are mainly new entrants trying to establish themselves.

There are fewer suppliers and systems for electronic care records, but still around a dozen or so for UK care providers to pick from.

All of these different systems are essentially trying to solve the same core problems and improve the same processes.

In the case of rostering software, to make it as easy and as efficient as possible to manage large numbers of care workers, ensuring the right staff, with the right skills, get to the right place at the right time, for the right duration.

In the case of care planning software, to reduce admin and improve information based processes by digitising your care plans, assessment forms and so on.

At the same time, electronic care plan systems will have a mobile app, which care workers use to record activities, medications administered, visit notes and so on. A high quality app and care planning system will give care workers all the information they need to deliver safe, person centred care, whilst making the necessary in-visit admin less time consuming and intrusive to the interaction between the care worker and the person they are visiting.

How to choose the right software for domiciliary care

So now that you know what we're talking about when we talk about software for domiciliary care software, use the six clear points below to help you choose the right software for your domiciliary care services.

P.S. The list is not in order of importance. All six considerations matter and can have a big influence on how effective and long-lasting your home care software choice is (and how healthy the return on investment is too).

So read to the end, digest the points and please keep this guide in mind when you start having those demonstrations and get ready to put pen to paper. If your software choice can do all of the six points below then you are probably making the right choice, if not then you may be making a gamble that won't pay off.

1. Can it handle those real life home care complications?

Despite trying to solve the same problems, or provide the same improvements, each offering from each supplier can be wildly different when looked at in depth. Certainly you will see the differences once you are actually using them in your care business.

Most will seem the same on the surface but it’s in the detail, in the ‘what about if this happens’ moments.

Here are just some examples you might want to quiz potential software providers on:

What about if we have ‘double ups’ – multiple care workers on the same visit?
Can I set up different pay rates for different visit types?
Does information from care assessments feed into care plans automatically?
Does the rostering system reconcile planned visit times vs. actual visit times?
How can I use the system to make care workers aware of visits/shifts we need cover for?
What kind of access is there for our clients and their family members/stakeholders?
How do you control access for different users and user types?

When you are being shown a system by the supplier, think about how your service runs, not in an ideal world but in the real world. Can this system handle not just the normal, the neat and the tidy, but the unusual or imperfect situations that are bound to arise in the course of running a care service.

Assess the system on this criteria to ensure you have a system that is genuinely fit for purpose and the real world of care.

2. Is it easy to use – for everyone?

When it comes to choosing the right domiciliary care software, ease of use is a factor that is so, so important, yet overlooked all the time.

You can have the most intelligent, advanced software in the world but if the people that are supposed to use it find it confusing, clunky or error prone, then at best your care service won’t get the most out of it, at worst your staff will reject it and your software implementation will hit a brick wall.

Care software is supposed to make it easier for care workers to do their job. Giving them all the information they need, and allowing them to spend more time providing care and less time doing other things like admin during visits.

Care workers vary in age, background, education level and so on. Some are very tech savvy, but that shouldn’t be a requirement for the role. This means the software you add, specifically the mobile app they will use during care visits, needs to be very easy to learn and easy to use.

It’s also worth mentioning to you that the care providers I have spoken who have gotten the most out of their software are those that involved different representatives from different roles in the business when they were selecting their software.

Your care coordinator, your care workers and other roles may be able to spot a hidden shortcoming, or a benefit of the software you are evaluating that simply wouldn’t occur to someone in charge of running the business. They’re in their role every day and have a different perspective, it is valuable and involving them will make your software selection much more robust.

Likewise they are often best placed to assess how easy it seems to use and whether they and their team members will be able to get the hand of it quickly. It may seem straightforward to you, but you may be assuming a level of tech literacy that is not shared by your team members.

3. Is it flexible and configurable?

When you’re being run through a demonstration by a sales person for home care software its very easy to go with the flow and take on their one size fits all version of how the software should be set up.

However, if you’ve worked in more than one care service you know that each one is different. Care providers pride themselves on building best practice into the forms, care plans, assessments and other documents their service uses. If you have a one size fits all piece of software then you risk losing all this hard earned expertise, or not being able to change your forms as you improve or adapt your service.

Likewise, new areas of best practice focus in social care are always emerging, as are new demands from regulators or local authorities. Let’s say you need to focus more on setting and measuring outcomes, can you easily add these elements into your assessment forms and care/support plans?

Or what if you expand into providing new types of support, for people with learning disabilities for example, or in supported living or residential settings. Will your system be able to cope in all these environments, or will you need to shell out for another system, perhaps from another supplier that doesn’t integrate with your existing software? At that point you’re getting into nightmare territory.

So, of course, assess the ‘out of the box’ setup the software provider shows you. But please don’t neglect to dig into and press the sales person on how flexible and configurable their solution is:

For example, ask:

Can I create and easily change my own forms, care plans and so on myself?
Can I create custom workflows, alerts and modify these according to the changing needs of my organisation?
Is the system easy to adapt to different care settings – do you have any examples of this?
Is the system adaptable to changes in our care ‘environment’ for example, regulatory changes, or thought on best practice?

If you are unable to make these customisations yourself, some companies will bill you extra on top of your usual monthly fees to make these changes and you may need to wait in line for their in-house specialists to become available, so it really does pay to ensure your new software is flexible enough to fit you, rather than you and your care service contorting to fit around its limitations.

4. Is it integrated?

In domiciliary care more than perhaps any other setting it is crucial for your rostering and care plan software to be properly integrated.

When I say properly integrated, I mean firstly that all necessary information from your rostering system flows into your care planning system and vice versa. For example, changes to visit schedules, addresses, key safe information and so on automatically flows from your rostering to your care planning software.

Less information needs to flow from your care planning system to your rostering system, the key point here is that any shared datapoints are synchronised. This means if a piece of information – for example emergency contacts – is stored in both your rostering and care planning system, then when it is changed or updated in one system it should automatically be updated in the other.

Secondly proper integration should result in your care workers only needing to use one app, their care planning app. Information from the rostering system, such as changes to visit times, additional visits, personnel changes and so on should automatically update their visit schedule.

I’ve seen many domiciliary care software providers touting their software as ‘integrated’ and then expecting care workers to use one mobile app to see where their visits are going to be and what time, and another app to access care plans, add visit notes and so on.

Not having proper integration, creates additional admin as you need to re-enter information into multiple systems. It also creates risk, the risk of two systems having contradictory information. At best this means your staff spend time trying to sort out what the truth of the matter is.

At worst it can cause information gaps and breakdowns that affect the quality of your service for client and sometimes even undermine safety.

5. Price and Value

Price is going to be a factor in any purchasing decision, but even more so when you’re making an investment for your business, in a sector like domiciliary care where the margins can be razor thin.

Home care software prices can vary greatly for what seem like very similar products. For example, one rostering system may be much cheaper than another, and seem the same – on the surface. But there is usually a reason for that extra expense.

To get a clearer idea on what you should be paying, different pricing models and why costs vary from one system to the next read this guide to home care software pricing which covers the topic in the detail necessary for you.

Always weigh price up with returns, getting a good deal is great, but plenty of domiciliary care providers have been burnt by software that has flaws and holes. This often leads to you being disappointed and not getting the benefits, or return you expected on your investment.

This article on home care software return on investment (ROI) examines different measurements of ROI that home care providers themselves have made. It should open up some new considerations for you when choosing your home care software.

If you are a new, or currently a smaller home care provider you may want to take a look at Access’ Care Foundations software packages. It gives you the best software available with exclusive discounts especially for new or smaller domiciliary care providers.

6. Reporting and Analytics

When looking at domiciliary care software you are probably going to be first and foremost concerned with how it handles the day to day tasks, how it makes them more efficient, secure and reliable.

However, whether you own the business, are a registered manager or a director responsible for a specific area like compliance or finance, you will benefit greatly if the system also has powerful, inbuilt reporting.

Why? Well because it means the system can take all the data that is being captured all the time, from visit time and attendance, to incidents, falls, hospitalisations, all the way through to recruitment and billing information.

If the system has a strong reporting module, this data can be turned into actionable insights, which you can use to make more informed decisions than ever before. Gone are the days of relying on gut calls or shared opinions, you can now use data to guide and evaluate your decision making to make it as robust as possible and to properly see the impact of changes made.

Choosing the right domiciliary care software for you

As you’ve read above, choosing the right domiciliary software means considering a number of key factors, some obvious and many less so.

The price of the system matters, of course, but don’t be led astray by a false bargain. That’s not to say you can’t find great value, but choosing a cheaper system that is full of holes probably means ripping and replacing that system in a year, or maybe even a few month’s time. Needless to say this is an expensive and disruptive process.

So alongside picking domiciliary care software that matches your budget, you need to ensure you pick a system that can handle the complexity and all eventualities of your care service, the double-ups, the invoicing, the last minute changes, absences and more.

You need a system that is customisable (also known as configurable) and flexible. It should be easily adaptable by you, for you. So you can retain your own assessments, care plans and so on as you go digital. Having this flexibility is also vital for any external changes, such as regulations.

Properly integrated home care software is much more common now than a few years ago, but there are still some pretenders out there. Make sure your rostering system sends all the information it needs to your care plan system and vice versa. Not all information needs to exist in both systems, so a good rule of thumb is that if you need to manually enter information from one system into the other then there is a gap where integration should be.

Making sure you have a system that is easy to use for each layer of your team is essential. Your care planning app needs to be easy for care workers to master. Your scheduling system needs to make sense to your care coordinators and have the functionality they would expect.

Other aspects you should consider

Alongside these core considerations of the software itself, you should also look at the supplier. Are they stable? How long have they been around? What does the future look like for them? Do they have the vision and wider set of software to grow and evolve with you as your business grows and faces new challenges? Are they preparing for new market conditions like integrated care?

Information security is another factor to add to your list. The supplier should be able to easily tell you what information security credentials they have, which are a stamp of approval that the data on your service and held on your clients will be stored securely and handled appropriately.

How Access can help

Having read this article of mine, I hope you feel much more informed and ready to choose the right domiciliary care software for you. Its not an easy decision, but when done right digitising your care services will deliver real benefits for your business, your service, your clients and your staff.

At Access over 10,000 registered care locations use our home care management software. So I would say it is a good idea to include us in your selection process, check us out and see if we have the best domiciliary care software for you.

Alongside our market leading home care rota software and care planning software, we also provide:

And much more, all delivered via a single platform; Access Workspace for Care to make everything easier to access and easier to use.