MiTAC and Invatech’s Pro-active Care System provide Bethany Care Home with a complete medicines management solution for its residents

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Case Study

MiTAC and Invatech’s Pro-active Care System provide Bethany Care Home with a complete medicines management solution for its residents

07 Jan 2019

Established in 1984 and located on the outskirts of Cheptow, UK, Bethany Care Home is a friendly, family-run care home with 36 residents. Robert Phelps and his team of qualified staff provide care for the elderly with illnesses including dementia. At Bethany Care Home, the team has taken an innovative approach to healthcare. By using technology, they are creating efficiencies that enable staff to move away from administrative and data-based tasks and dedicate more time giving quality care to residents.

MiTAC and Invatech’s Pro-active Care System

The Challenge

There is a real risk of error in medicines management in care homes. Firstly, traditional paper-based systems are difficult to manage and lead to safety issues. For example, a double dose of medicine due to faulty paper recording can lead to overdose – a possibility when you consider there can be over 5,000 paper records created per week creating a significant administrative burden. Secondly, paper systems are also difficult to audit because they may be damaged or misplaced. These limitations made it hard to prove accountable systems were in place when Bethany Care Home was inspected by the Care Quality Commission, which is responsible for regulating care homes in England. Robert Phelps and his team wanted to use technology to provide not only a safer system for administration of medicines, but also a more accountable system that would enable analysis of the performance of staff and highlight where further training is needed.

MiTAC and Invatech’s Pro-active Care System banner photo

In response to this, Bethany Care Home trialled first generation Invatech software, delivered on a competitor handheld device. The software addressed some of the issue highlighted above, but the devices were slow and staff found them difficult to use. The screen was small, the battery life was limited and there were reliability issues that meant reverting to paper. It was clear a different device was required to deliver the software – one that was more reliable, durable, antibacterial, waterproof, with a long battery life, touchscreen, accurate scanning ability, and was most of all, easy to use.

The Solution

After a rigorous audit process, Invatech selected the MioCARE™ A235, a handheld tablet with an integrated barcode scanner. It is designed for the care market, with its antimicrobial coating, as well as being durable, rugged and lightweight. Staff at Bethany Care Home claim the second-generation Pro-active Care System (PCS) and the new MioCARE™ A235 have revolutionised the care they can provide.

The Outcome

Bethany Care Home was pleased with the transition to the new PCS on the MioCARE™ A235. Because of detailed medication recording, it’s now easy to react to emergencies by pulling patient records to find details of the medication the resident had received and at what time. This is useful for the ambulance service, saving time digging through pages of paper notes and wasting valuable time.

The Future

Bethany Care Home will continue to work with Invatech to make its care more efficient and to lead the market by using technology to improve its service. Invatech and MiTAC will also continue to provide Bethany Care Home with the best support possible, using the PCS system MioCARE™ tablet to ensure drug administration and inventory controls are safer than ever.

We have solved many challenges using the new PCS on the MioCARE™ tablet. I can see where mistakes are made, have staff control and can access the data from my computer so I can see where there is room for improvement and training. There are regulations and standards the care home has to adhere to, so this is an excellent way for me to save time and money and my carers can spend more time with the residents.

Robert Phelps, Bethany Care Home Manager

Recording on paper takes at least 1 hour per round – that’s roughly three hours a day doing medicine rounds. There would be error in 20% of total activity that includes wastage and mistaken recordings. With the tablets we can do each round in much less than an hour with higher accuracy. It is so easy to scan the medication and use it for stock control; I can even scan the barcodes upside down.

Emily Williams, Team Leader at Bethany Care Home

The paper system was too unreliable. It caused life threatening situations where a carer could complete a drug round and forget to do the administration. I can now log into the tablet with my own identification code and the system tells me which resident is due medication. I click on the resident and scan the barcode of the medicine I am about to administer. The dose is identified as correct or incorrect by the barcode scan and if incorrect, there will be an error message on the tablet telling me I cannot administer to the resident. If the system indicates that it is correct, I prepare the medicine and take it to the resident. Sometimes, I spill water and medicine onto the tablet in transit; however, it is easy to clean and does not affect the tablet, regardless of how wet or sticky it is. The size is easy to carry and the battery is excellent – we rarely have to charge it mid-round.

Amy Howard, Medication Leader at Bethany Care Home