Communicating seamlessly with families is evidence of great care…

Reporting by care providers means peace of mind for families

ourCare enables your carers to provide frequent clear messages to the family and friends of residents. It takes only a few seconds for a care worker to compose and send a message, seconds that can make a great difference to the way your facility is perceived.

Benefits include:

Communication

Short, frequent messages provide peace of mind for the relatives of residents. Getting a message that the resident has had breakfast, that they have seen the doctor, or enjoyed their excursion to the local park can be the difference between worrying about the standard of care and knowing that their loved one is being looked after well.

Ease of use

Care workers are busy people and any solution has to add a minimal amount of extra work, and that minimal amount should result in much greater benefits. Most interactions take less than ten seconds, yet the benefits of relatives knowing their loved-one is receiving the best care can last a long time.

Knowing that workers have only two hands, ourCare has been designed so that all the common features can be managed with just one hand on the device. In fact, our lead developer has spoken at conferences around the world about designing software for one-handed operation.

Security and privacy

ourCare takes the confidentiality of residents’ information very seriously. All data is stored in Australia in accordance with current legislation and industry best practices. All communications between ourCare’s servers and devices is encrypted, and all media is stored in encrypted form.

Information in ourCare is never shared with any third party without the express permission of a resident (or their legal representative), and ourCare will never use information for any purpose other than delivering the services a resident has requested. (In other words, it will never be used for marketing.)

The programming in ourCare does not include any third-party bug reporting or analytics packages to eliminate the chance of data being compromised by outside parties.

Clear communication between facilities and families offers benefits to both. Families get peace of mind while facilities reduce the need for in-person interactions with worried relatives. Facilities also get to demonstrate the ongoing quality of the services they are providing to those in their care.

If you would like us to show you in more detail how ourCare can benefit your organisation, book a demonstration with us.

The features and benefits of ourCare for care providers

These are just some of the features and benefits that ourCare can provide to you and your organisation.

Staff roles

Staff members can be assigned different roles inside ourCare which will determine the level of access they have to functions and client data. This ensures each staff member can do their jobs and still maintain data security.

Staff authentication

ourCare’s functions are tied to the device that is being used, rather than the person using it. This means that there are no passwords for staff to remember and the biometric authentication systems used on modern mobile devices provide a high level of data security.

ourCare’s programming ensures that photographs and other media are not stored in the device’s media library; photographs, for example, are intercepted and encrypted before they are able to reach the devices picture library.

Staff privacy

Many workers in the caring professions are careful about their own privacy. Given the nature of the work they often do not want clients or their families to know their full names. ourCare allows staff members to use a name such as “Nurse Jackie” of “Carer John” on communications to families and friends. The worker is still identifiable, but their personal privacy is maintained.

Meal Reports

Relatives are often concerned that their loved ones are eating well, so ourCare provides a very quick and easy way for a carer to let the family know about meal times. ourCare can send a message detailing both how much a resident has eaten and how much they enjoyed it. An optional photograph of the meal can be included. How long does it take a worker to do this? Under ten seconds!

Medical appointments

Knowing that a loved one has been to see the doctor, or dentist, or physio… can be a great comfort to relatives. With ourCare a carer can dash off a quick message in seconds, letting relatives know the appointment happened. If a relative has specific consent they can be sent a more detailed report containing medical information; there are safeguards in place to ensure that not every relative will get this additional information.

Resident identification

Often care workers do not have a chance to learn the names of every one in their care, so ourCare can supply some help. Using the latest technologies in machine learning and artificial intelligence, an authorised ourCare carer can identify a resident using the camera on their device. Being able to always address a resident by name makes a carer’s job easier and is of great comfort to the resident.

Resident backgrounds

Attached to each resident record is a short text block that families can write to provide carers with a little background information about a resident. This information can be used by carers as a basis for interaction with the resident, ensuring a more homely experience for those in care, and letting families know that their loved ones are more than just “the man in room 7”.

Automated messaging

It is a fact that many workers in the caring sector are from overseas and that many do not have English as their first language. For general reporting purposes, meals, activities, visitors etc, the text of a message is generated automatically, ensuring that outgoing communications retain a polished and professional appearance.

Incoming messages

ourCare allows authorised family members to send messages to residents in care. These messages are kept on the ourCare servers until a carer has the opportunity to present them to the resident. This allows families to keep in touch, but also allows carers to choose a convenient time to deliver the message. These messages can include short video or audio attachments and a facility can control the frequency of incoming communications.

Advanced photography

In addition to the automated messaging system, ourCare allows carers to take more candid photographs of residents and share them to authorised contacts. Residents’ privacy is maintained as those who are not the subject of the photograph can easily have a blur effect applied to their faces. Artificial intelligence features will attempt to identify the unburied faces in the photograph and suggest those people’s contacts as recipients of the photograph.

Community languages

This feature is still being developed Modern mobile devices can handle many languages other than English. ourCare has been developed to be able to prepare and present messages in languages other than English. Any messages automatically created with ourCare are stored in both English and the second language so monitoring of communications is not compromised.

The final implementation of this feature will be done in collaboration with language communities.

Request a demonstration

The main ourCare application is complete and is ready for testing before its launch. It is already ready for demonstrations and we would be happy to show you its features.

We can demonstrate in-person or if you have a suitable device and internet connection we can show you the features via a video call.

We’re excited to show ourCare and willing to listen to suggestions for improvement so that it can fit your requirements even more closely.