The social care technology company Konnektis and Bradford Metropolitan District Council have developed an information sharing platform which aims to help people to stay in their home by informing a person’s treatment and care, therefore reducing the pressures on the health and care system. This example of how local areas are working to implement overall system change forms part of our care and health improvement digital and information resource.
The challenge
Often information on a person’s care plan, home care visit records or other care service records is handwritten and kept in a paper file in a person’s home. This can lead to problems with information such as changes in care routines or medication dosages not being accessible, shared or clear.
The solution
The Bradford-based social care technology company Konnektis and Bradford Metropolitan District Council have developed an information sharing platform. It aims to help people to stay in their home by informing a person’s treatment and care, therefore reducing the pressures on the health and care system (such as unnecessary hospital admissions). Citizens are given an electronic tablet for use at home which provides them and professionals with access to real time read and write personal health and care information. Information is securely hosted in the cloud, which enables information to be shared with the full range of carers and families at the point-of-need via the tablet or a secure website.
The impact
The approach ensures citizens and their families are supported appropriately and helps reassure them about their care. For example, a service user will be notified via a message on their tablet if their social worker due to visit is delayed. Simply knowing and being reassured that support is on its way radically changes the citizen’s experience. It stops them and their family getting unnecessarily anxious, giving up on their care and possibly escalating in to an unplanned hospital admission.
How is your approach being sustained
Konnektis is not only a real success for the service user and their family but also for local business and the economy. Konnektis has developed from a three-person start-up company in Bradford and grown in to a capability covering the city and the surrounding area. Bradford Metropolitan District Council piloted the technology in the homes of 10 service users for three months and are scaling up in stages to roll out the platform across the district.
Lessons learned
With a fragmented and fractured care market belief needs to be built with partners and people that things can be repaired and to provide hope. The approach with Konnektis has been to start small and build up once the concept was proved to have worked. Being able to share the success stories about the impact on people’s lives is what inspires and secures commitment to information sharing.
