Health outcomes refer to the overall impact of health care interventions and treatments on an individual’s health status.
Each year, the Quality Assurance team at The Good Care Group reviews incidents from the previous year in order to monitor quality, identify areas of improvement and to evidence where positive outcomes have been achieved for the clients that are using our service. This article will be discussing in further detail the positive impact that our care services have had on reducing falls, urinary tract infections (UTIs), pressure ulcers, medication and end-of-life care.
Falls
Each client at The Good Care Group has a personalised falls management plan to identify and manage any potential risks. This plan is put into place to reduce the likelihood of falls. Our in-house Occupational Therapist (OT) oversees the ongoing development of falls management training, and also offers advice to the care teams on how to prevent and reduce falls.
Results of these measures:
- Only 11% of clients sustained physical injury after a fall, in comparison to 40% in hospital.
- In 2022 only 2.6% of falls at The Good Care Group resulted in serious injury, in comparison to 3.6% in 2021.
These statistics show that The Good Care Group is improving our services year on year, and that receiving care at home with us has a beneficial effect on reducing injury following a fall.
Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs)
When joining The Good Care Group, our professional carers attend an in-depth five day induction course where they are trained to perform urinalysis using urine testing kits. This fully equips them to recognise any signs and symptoms of UTIs and to act quickly by passing the information over to the GP for prompt medical treatment.
Resultantly:
- The average monthly UTI rate per client for 2022 was 7.37% which is a decrease of 17.65% on the number reported in 2021.
- In 2022 the UTI monthly average rate dropped, for the first time in three years.
- 1.42% of new UTIs identified by The Good Care Group urinalysis kits resulted in hospital admission, vs. 18.52% where The Good Care Group urinalysis kits were not able to be used.
This evidence shows that using the urinalysis kits that our carers are equipped with is useful for early diagnosis and therefore prompt treatment.
Pressure Ulcers
An in-depth assessment is undertaken prior to clients starting care with us to ensure a personalised care plan is created. This includes robust strategies on how to reduce the risk of pressure ulcers. Specific training is delivered by our Consultant Admiral Nurse to our Care Management Team, which focuses on upskilling the team on preventative approaches to avoid pressure ulcers.
Professional carers are also trained to provide personalised care to closely monitor the risk of skin breakdown, and strategies are implemented to reduce the development of pressure ulcers.
Resultantly:
- The prevalence of pressure ulcers in UK nursing homes are likely to be 7 – 23%, and 12% in hospitals.
- Clients being cared for at The Good Care Group are up to 25 times less likely to have a pressure ulcer than those living in nursing homes.
This demonstrates that training our care managers and professional carers to assess skin thoroughly is the correct approach to take when reducing the risk of pressure ulcers.
Medication
At The Good Care Group, we use a digital electronic medication administration (eMAR) system to add all clients’ medication to a file that can be checked by the Care Manager. Automated alerts are created if a medication is not recorded at the expected time, or if there is an entry that does not match the medication entry itself. The Regional Management Team follows this up immediately to ensure that the medication is administered as prescribed.
Choosing The Good Care Group will reduce the chances of medication errors:
- Medication administration errors are 5.6x more likely to occur in care homes in comparison to The Good Care Group.
The outcome of this figure proves that using this eMAR system to record medication has greatly improved the chances of any administration errors happening, and is a better alternative to receiving care within a care home.
End-of-life Care
At the Good Care Group, we pride ourselves on our open and honest culture, where time is taken to understand people’s needs, wishes, and preferences around end-of-life care. We are aware that 70% of the population would like to pass away in the comfort of their own home, that is why The Good Care Group collaborates with healthcare professionals to ensure people live at home until the very end, where this is their preference. This is achieved by providing a specialist end-of-life care pathway.
Before service at The Good Care Group commences, the Care Manager will go out to complete a detailed assessment of the client’s health including their wishes for end-of-life care. When changes happen to the client’s health, their end-of-life plan will be updated accordingly. This ensures that the client has the opportunity to set out their wishes, enabling The Good Care Group to provide bespoke support.
This is the result of opting for care with us:
- In 2022, 87% of The Good Care Group clients were supported to die at home which is a year on year increase since 2020.
This statistic has been compared to an Age UK 2019 analysis, where only 19% of deaths from the wider population happened at home, despite 50-70% of these individuals stating that they would prefer to die at home. In comparison, a client at The Good Care Group is four times more likely to pass away at home when compared to the wider population.
The finding above demonstrates that The Good Care Group enables clients to have the freedom to decide where they spend the end of their life and support them to do so as per their wishes.
Interested in hearing more about our services?
To arrange a live-in-care home assessment, please get in touch by using this enquiry form. Or feel free to call us on 0808 2580 372.
