Did you know that iPods are good for much, much more than simply playing music?
We didn’t – until recently. But now they’re changing the way we do things at Sansa House and they’re a big hit with everyone: the people we support, our staff, and our directors.
A few months ago, we took up a free trial of Person-Centred Software. We were impressed, so it’s just gone live at Sansa House.
So far, the staff are really positive and believe that it’s a great modernising step for them. It also makes their jobs simpler, because they’re able to more easily monitor the people they support. Plus, there’s much more space for diary entries so there’s much more information available about the people we support and everyone can access it.
What does Person Centred Software do?
Person Centred Software (PCS) created Mobile Care Monitoring, which gives staff more time for care – because they spend less time on administration and they have more information about the people they support when they need it.
Essentially, it gives us a better picture of how the people we support spend their days and nights. And that allows us to keep improving their lifestyles.
And how do iPods fit in?
At Sansa House, we’ve chosen to use PCS with our iPods. The software sits on the iPods and goes everywhere with our staff. It’s proving really useful for all kinds of things, from the vitally important stuff right down to little fun touches that make everyone smile.
Measuring happiness and keeping everyone in the picture
We’re using our new system to measure happiness every day, with positive monitoring. They make it easy to analyse participation in activities over time, so we can build a picture of our service users’ lifestyles. Identifying trends and patterns means we can tell who takes part in what, and find out which activities each individual prefers. That makes it very easy to create tailored programmes for all the people we support.
All our service users’ schedules are on the iPods now, and the staff find that extremely useful. They can easily:
- Check which tasks are upcoming for each person they support
- Flag important tasks, such as when medication is due
- Add extra information about each service user as and when it comes up
- Take more pictures! The iPod camera is easily accessible, so we’re taking many more photographs of the people we support doing the things they enjoy (and they love photos of themselves)
But perhaps most exciting is the fact that all this information is available to ALL registered users through a web link. Liaise’s managers and directors now have a full and immediate picture of what’s going on at Sansa, so they can make sure that all staff have everything they need.
In every industry, there tends to be a gap between management and the people who work in the field. Our gap was pretty small anyway – but now we’re hoping to close it completely. It’s so important for everyone in the organisation to feel involved in our everyday activities and stay close to the people we support.
The verdict? So far, we’re loving it! Watch this space to see if we roll it out to all our houses.
If you’d like to know more about how we’re using Person-Centred Software, just give us a call on 0845 094 9295 and we’ll happily talk you through it.
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