Community health workers (i.e home care aids, paid caregivers) are tasked with supporting people with chronic medical conditions or intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) with daily activities, such as getting dressed, cooking meals, and more. They are taking a role analogous to a family member with emphasis on building trust to give individuals independence and freedom. However, they frequently run into difficulties that make it harder to properly care for each patient. Trust, routine, and rapport are important, but care aids have an uphill challenge since they are often starting fresh with no reference points. Logistically, communication and coordination between care team members is difficult and non-standard, typically using email. Documentation is mostly handwritten and stored in binders. Because of this, the information is siloed and creates sub-optimal outcomes. Additionally, service utilization is low since finding community-based services is hard, especially IDD specific. Finally, it is difficult to provide families with relevant high quality information, education, and tools.
CaringWire is a digital-first multimedia program specifically for caregivers (paid and unpaid) that helps solve the aforementioned problems. Our goal is to empower caregivers, thus giving the patients the best care possible. We have listened to the challenges caregivers face, and aim to solve them with our digital platform. Here is how:
For day to day problems, we create efficient escalation to on-call support within the integrated care team. We capture real-time health risk progression with daily check-ins, such as behavioral logs. The behavioral logs work by having the care provider record any problematic or stressful behaviors the patient exhibits each day, ultimately creating a summative dashboard that shows behavioral trends over time and the impact of any interventions. Using our tools, home care aids are able to standardize data collection and stay organized.
Regarding notes and communications, we standardize formats and storage in a digital format, eliminating the need for messy files where documentation cannot be easily accessed or can only be by one person at a time. Instead of sporadic emails, CaringWire offers consolidated coordination and communication through a single portal. Some of our unique features include multiple patient profiles per “household”, document storage, assigning tasks between caregivers, sharing calendars, and only needing one platform for the entire care team. Each profile stores documentation associated with the patient, their medication reminders, a detailed routine, and any notes. Furthermore, the shared calendar and profile being accessed easily by new caregivers ensures warm handoffs, and allows them to build rapport with the patients faster. Overall, having a single digital communication platform for guardians, home care aids, families, and providers keeps all parties updated and the patient under the best care.
Lastly, community health workers have access to services with real-time linkage to relevant education and local IDD resources. Helpful information regarding IDD can be time consuming to find, if at all. CaringWire sees this information gap and provides education to both the care manager and the patient. For the patient and family, there is expert guidance on basic IDD terms and topics, some of which include waivers, chronic conditions, falls, family support, guardianship, and more. While understanding terms is necessary, knowledge of what services are available and their functions can be just as useful for patients and their families. Our platform includes a national database of service care providers, providing the ability to locate local resources with service descriptions, and tips in understanding service care provider’s quality of care. For the care manager, there is basic education regarding preventative guidance to help them handle common symptoms and health conditions. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to be presented with too much information on a topic. This is why CaringWire utilizes brief assessments that customize education and recommendations within common topics. In addition, users are able to filter results for more accurate information, like waiver and IDD specific providers. All in all, any information a patient, family member, or caregiver may need is easily accessed through the CaringWire platform.
In summary, CaringWire provides a comprehensive digital program to standardize check-ins, care delivery, and information exchange to enable care gap closures and aging in place. We give best-in-class tools to paid caregivers that drive retention and improve over time with feedback. When there are multiple caregivers, we standardize care delivery, documentation, and information exchange to ensure warm handoff and build trust. Our digital platform allows care aids to spend their time focusing on what's important, the patient, instead of the logistics that go into caretaking.
At CaringWire, customer service is the top priority. Our team works “quickly, professionally and creatively,” according to our partners. We are ROI minded, and constantly work to improve our products to fit the specific needs of each customer. To learn more about our products and services, email us at solutions@caringwire.com or call at +1 614-271-1792.
