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5 Ways Your Home Care Business Should Be Capitalizing On The Latest Tech Solutions

Published on October 17, 2022 by Sharon Morrisette

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Ever since the Covid-19 pandemic, digitalization has been at full speed in many industries, and the home care industry is no exception.

As Covid-19 still poses a threat to the most vulnerable, innovative technologies in home care are making it possible for more people than ever to “age in place.” As the demand for home care continues to grow, there are more opportunities than ever for home care service providers. 

However, more demand typically brings more challenges!

As a home care provider, investing in the right tech solutions is essential to overcome many of these challenges – including sustaining growth, implementing safeguarding solutions for seniors and care patients, and reducing client and caregiver turnover.

This article covers some of the latest tech solutions in the home care industry and how your home care business can capitalize on them.

Going paperless

Digital tracking and management solutions - Smartcare Software

Paperless processes save your business time, space, and money. 

Digitizing your database of client records, employee documents, client and staff schedules, billing, and payroll helps you run your business more smoothly. 

With paperless processes, onboarding new patients, caregivers, and employees, as well as billing, can all be done with the click of a button. 

At the same time, electronic health records reduce potential human error and make finding and updating information far easier. 

When looking to invest in home care software to capitalize on going paperless, home care providers should remember to opt-in for HIPAA-compliant systems to protect their clients’ information and privacy.

Streamlining and automating processes

Look at your current processes, as some tasks no longer need to be done manually.

Streamlining and automating processes increases efficiency, reduces errors, and saves precious time and effort on admin tasks, so you and your staff can get more done in less time.

Home care providers can capitalize on using automation tools or software designed to handle recurring tasks, such as billing and scheduling – and to simplify others, such as hiring. For example, many home care softwares include:

  • E-billing: Home care providers can bill clients automatically or send automated payment reminders with billing software or e-billing tools.
  • Caregiver-centric scheduling: Scheduling caregivers is crucial and often challenging. Schedulers need to communicate with the client and the caregiver, find the perfect match and adapt their schedules to each other. Scheduling tools speed up this process and automate caregiver reminders to ensure no shift is missed, and all open shifts are taken.
  • Tracking caregiver visits: Automating Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) is important since Medicaid-funded home care must be EVV-compliant. EVV automation combines GPS tracking, client verification, and electronic recordings of all visits, including dates, times, locations, and services. 
  • Recruitment and hiring: Application Tracking Systems (ATS) help HR and recruiters manage and communicate with job candidates. As a result, home care providers can lower hiring costs with a built-in ATS while offering a better candidate experience.
  • Sales and marketing: Converting leads to clients, gathering client feedback and referrals, nurturing client relationships, building your brand, and more, become easier with sales and marketing automation tools.  

As your business grows, keeping up with and sustaining your growth is more manageable with streamlined and automated processes that can be achieved using the right home care software.

Using mobile technologies for remote communication and patient monitoring

woman using phone at home

The pandemic has made remote patient monitoring indispensable, and mobile technologies are the perfect match for home care providers.

Since the caregiver workforce is often remote, mobile applications help caregivers access care documentation and location information from anywhere. 

Mobile apps also improve the interaction between caregivers, clients, and their families with in-app messaging and video calling features. These features are invaluable for home care providers to guarantee ongoing client and family support, engagement, and satisfaction. 

As a result, establishing a better client/caregiver bond reduces client and caregiver turnover.

Many mobile technologies also feature voice control apps like Amazon Alexa and Google Home. These tools enable medication reminders and allow older people with reduced mobility to call family members, switch off their lights, or change the TV channel more easily.

Home care providers can also train their caregivers on programming such devices to set reminders on taking medication and completing daily tasks.

Boosting caregiver engagement and training with gamification tools  

Gamification tools use points, rewards, and prizes to incentivize completing tasks and training. 

Home care providers can use gamification tools to set goals for caregivers aligned with the company’s KPI targets, such as increasing customer satisfaction. Caregivers who reach their goals can receive rewards, boosting morale and engagement.

Gamification can also make routine caregiver tasks, such as clocking in or registering care reports, more fun and consequently help to improve caregiver engagement and retention.

Not only do gamification tools provide a better experience to caregivers, but they can also be used to motivate them to pursue more professional training. 

For example, gamification methods such as level-ups and rewarding caregivers for completing training modules, motivate them to advance in their profession.

Similarly, outlining the onboarding process, like a game walkthrough, simplifies the experience and keeps caregivers engaged throughout the learning process.

Making management-level decisions based on data

team discussing data

Thriving businesses all have one thing in common: setting and tracking goals.

Tracking employee performance, customer satisfaction, gross revenue, and more point to areas that need improvement in your business. Therefore, collecting data on such key performance indicators is essential to plan for business success. 

Using data collection and analytics, home care providers can pick up on patterns such as low-performing months and an increase in caregiver or client turnover. Looking at analytics reports helps home care providers understand the reasons behind these patterns.

Additionally, you can set and track goals in line with your business performance. Whether you want to increase productivity, improve customer satisfaction, decrease costs or increase profits, setting a goal and planning a strategy around it is easier with data analytics tools.

Why should you choose Smartcare?

Smartcare ticks all the boxes in solving home care providers’ challenges with the latest technology, from digitizing client records to monitoring your business’s KPIs. 

It combines electronic health records, staff documents, caregiver and client scheduling, accounting, invoicing, and payroll functions, and all other business operations such as sales pipeline, hiring, and onboarding – all on one platform.

Home care providers can capitalize on tech tools when they invest in the right home care technology. Smartcare’s user-friendly platform simplifies the digitalization process, so your home care business can start benefiting from its features in no time! 

For more information about Smartcare, contact us or request a demo.