How AI is changing resident care plans: 4 ways facilities can benefit
Traditional care planning has long been a demanding and meticulous process that requires careful attention to numerous details. Comprehensive plans are crafted with careful consideration of a resident’s specific needs within the initial seven days of admission. These plans take into account a resident’s condition, medications, and overall care requirements, ensuring that every aspect of their well-being is included.
However, the time-consuming nature of care planning can’t be overstated, with an estimated 60 hours spent per facility each month. The time spent on developing care plans raises concerns about staff support, clinical outcomes, and the risk of outdated or inadequate care plans, which can lead to citations and fines, amounting to more than $31 million over the last four years.
Considering the availability of data and the nature of these challenges, the current care planning process is ripe with opportunity for artificial intelligence (AI) to have a significant impact. AI is poised to revolutionize resident care plans, offering greater efficiency and effectiveness. Let’s dive into how AI can improve care planning and the advantages for skilled nursing facilities. In this blog, we’ll take a closer look at the following AI benefits:
1. Streamline a personalized care approach
It all begins with easy access to essential information within your EHR software, ensuring comprehensive personalized care plans without the risk of overlooking critical details. With the help of AI, the process is streamlined by language models which identify frequently and recently used care plans, offering smart suggestions that have been previously reviewed and validated and are derived from past successful cases.
Clinicians can then customize those plans for an individual resident. AI also contributes to the development of a comprehensive care plan dictionary, grouping challenges and goals for all residents, with new admissions matched to existing data to generate personalized suggestions that evolve as the care journey progresses.
AI can ensure care plans remain dynamic and accurate by continuously monitoring changes in a resident’s condition and proactively suggesting updates. This comprehensive AI-driven approach enhances care planning, offering ease of access, customization, and continuous improvement, ultimately delivering superior care to residents.
2. Provide staff support
AI-powered care planning software significantly impacts staff support, particularly benefiting clinicians who often contend with multiple responsibilities to provide the best resident care. It helps alleviate the time associated with developing resident care plans from scratch and offers support across other areas. Through analyzing resident data, the smart software can swiftly identify patterns, trends, and potential issues within the care plan, allowing staff to proactively meet the needs of their residents.
AI also aids in documentation, regularly ensuring care plans are complete and up to date and reducing the risk of citations and fines. It also optimizes workflows by automating routine tasks, like appointment scheduling and medication reminders, to enhance efficiency and reduce errors. Ultimately, by lightening the administrative burden and offering invaluable insights, AI gives clinicians the time needed to concentrate on delivering personalized and compassionate care to residents.
3. Improve clinical outcomes
AI in care planning brings a transformative potential to enhance clinical outcomes in skilled nursing facilities, aligning with their commitment to delivering top-tier care to residents. This potential is realized through personalization, where care plans can be tailored to meet each resident’s unique needs by considering their medical history, current condition, and preferences. It’s easier to confirm care plans are regularly updated through alerts and suggestions to address evolving resident needs, ensuring they consistently receive the most appropriate care.
Through pattern recognition capabilities, facilities can use their care plans to provide proactive care by identifying at-risk residents and getting suggestions for preventive measures. With these AI-driven enhancements, facilities can provide better care, elevate resident satisfaction, and notably improve outcomes—a mutually beneficial result that resonates with residents and skilled nursing facilities.
4. Boost your bottom line
The role of AI in care planning extends beyond enhancing care quality, significantly impacting the financial well-being of skilled nursing facilities. It reduces staffing costs by streamlining care planning processes, ultimately allowing for more efficient resource allocation. It also mitigates the risk of fines and citations resulting from outdated or inadequate care plans by ensuring ongoing compliance and reducing the financial burden associated with regulatory penalties.
Are you looking to be more attractive in a competitive market? With the help of AI, care quality is elevated to provide a personalized resident-focused approach to care plans, which can lead to higher resident satisfaction, resulting in increased facility revenue.
The MatrixCare advantage
The integration of AI into care planning represents a remarkable leap forward in providing superior care in skilled nursing facilities. It streamlines the process, ensuring that care plans are comprehensive and tailored to each resident’s unique needs, thanks to easy access to essential information and smart suggestions. The result is a dynamic and accurate approach to care planning that enhances resident well-being and lightens the administrative load for healthcare professionals.
This holistic approach, combining personalized care, staff support, improved clinical outcomes, and a strong bottom line, is the future of care planning in skilled nursing facilities. Embracing an AI-driven solution for care plans is not just a technological shift, but a transformation that promises better outcomes for residents and a brighter future for the facilities that care for them.
With MatrixCare’s innovative EHR software, you can streamline your care planning process, improve resident care, and ensure compliance with ease. Plus, through the predictive technology of MatrixCare’s Clinical Advanced Insights, you have built-in access to this cutting-edge solution for your care plans.
Want to learn more about our software solutions?
Contact us at 866.469.3766 or visit matrixcare.com/skilled-nursing-software.
Daniel Zhu
Daniel Zhu comes from a diverse background of clinical experience and technology entrepreneurship. Having spent five years in clinical and clinical research roles with the Alberta health system and the University of Toronto health network, he has diverted his medical expertise to architecting and building technology solutions to optimize health care practice. At various organizations, he has lead engineering teams, product teams, and founded his own natural language processing start-up in the clinical research space. Stepping away from the start-up world, Daniel has spent time as a data consultant for large corporations such as Ford, Co-op, and RBI. Re-entering the health technology field, today Daniel has recently joined the ResMed and MatrixCare team to lead the productization of AI and machine learning capabilities.
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