Senior Care in the Home: How Care3 Brings Families and Care Professionals Together

Welcome back to our eldercare email series. In this installment we talk about one of the major issues facing senior care practitioners today, the lack of insight into what's happening at the patient’s home. When seniors are in the doctor office or a senior care day center, providers know exactly what's happening. But when they leave, it's a mystery what happens in the home. Wouldn't it be great if seniors, family and providers could collaborate and communicate what happens in those times when seniors are outside of health facilities? Here's what we're hearing from providers.

"We have no idea what happens when the patient leaves the senior center." Senior Care Program RN

"Half of our seniors don't even come into the center. We need them to come in." Senior Care Clinical Supervisor

Today senior care providers try to show families what should happen at home by sending paper instructions home with the senior and family caregiver. For example, some senior care programs send home a paper calendar, which shows what care tasks should be completed when seniors are home. Paper-based solutions depend on visual availability in the home, as well as the memory of the senior or the family caregiver in the time of need. Further, these solutions offer no feedback for the professional care team, there's no way to know if care tasks are being done.

At Care3, we see the lack of insight into care being delivered in the home as a clinical and financial risk to senior care programs nationwide. We believe it is just as important to capture and use information on care delivered in the home as much as it is for the care delivered in senior care centers. Care3 tracks all of the care that's delivered in the home by engaging family members around an individual care plan, which we call an Action Plan. Each action is itemized for the caregiver to complete in the home and then is tracked to ensure that those care tasks are completed. If those care tasks are not completed, Care3 notifies the professional care team so that they can make a decision whether to intervene. This is what makes Care3 different from every other care planning and communication solution available to senior care programs and families today.