Introduction
A residential care home is one of the most changing and developing aspects of today’s society. More people are living longer and with better health, but this often means that they cannot live in their own homes or take care of themselves. They will need help for every day tasks like cooking, reading, dressing, toileting and washing. Finding software for residential care homes can be difficult when there are so many different aspects to consider from what background it should have to if it should produce reports or not. We will talk about how you can find a software for residential care homes by considering some of the key aspects that need to be taken into account when choosing a product.
- Overall Cost of ownership:
The aim of any business is to work as efficiently as possible, which means the software has to be able to cater for future developments and changes. It also needs to be flexible so that it can easily adapt for new requirements but this is not feasible if the cost of ownership is too high. There are three costs concerned with a software: The initial cost, the run time cost and the re-investment over time. The initial cost is the price that has to be paid to be able to use the software (the price paid during installation). The run time cost involves the ongoing costs for operating the software. The re-investment is the price that has to be paid to re-invest in new technology, e.g. more memory or a more powerful processor, etc. For a residential care home software these three costs can’t possibly be equal because it is not run of existing hardware and can’t have an unlimited budget from the start.
- What needs to be done:
The software must be able to handle the amount of work that is required. The amount of effort depends on how many people are in the residential care home and what type of equipment they have (e.g. small TV or a DVD player). If there isn’t enough equipment or it is not capable of handling the number of people in the residential care home then the software must be able to integrate with this technology. It must be able to update previous information and store new information so that older data can be accessed and personal records are kept. It should have tasks which allow it to be documented, e.g. the amount of money that is spent on food.
- Availability of staff:
It is important to know how many people are working in the residential care home and how many are available at any given time. If a person comes in from work then other tasks will be put on hold until they return. This means that if someone does not come in everyday there could be a build up of work waiting for them to finish it.
- The nature of the tasks:
The nature of the tasks will determine the way in which they are recorded. If a task is repetitive then it should be made into a recurring task so that it can easily be done again and again. What is needed will also depend on how many people are living in the residential care home and what their needs are. For example, different people need different types of help with their daily life.
Conclusion
Overall, there are many aspects that need to be considered when choosing a software for residential care homes but with proper planning much of the difficulty can be avoided. For this reason it is best to have a list of what is required so that when choosing a product it can be compared against. If you need help with finding software for residential care homes, then please feel free to contact us.