A guest blog from Andrew Coles, CEO at Person Centred Software.

The focus of digital health and care records has largely revolved around what should be included in a person’s health and care record. While this is critical, less attention has been given to the personal details and requirements that exist outside of the health and care record, but are just as important to providing high-quality, effective care.

This is where PRSB’s About Me standard comes in. Quite simply, the About Me standard structures the most important details, preferences and requirements a person wants those caring for them to know about and act on. This could be a medical preference; for example, how the person prefers to take their medication, or something as intimate as the blanket they like to have with them for comfort during a hospital stay.

“PRSB’s About Me standard was a natural fit for Person Centred Software as, fundamentally, people are at the heart of everything we do.”

Traditionally, the social care sector has a lower rate of information standards adoption. But, through our customers in nursing homes and residential care settings, we soon discovered how important individualised About Me information is in allowing frontline staff to provide high-quality care. We knew that by integrating the About Me standard into our products, we would be delivering on our responsibility to the sector by improving the work of carers and helping to achieve widespread adoption of standards, forwarding the digital transformation agenda of the NHS.

Since Person Centred Software first implemented the About Me standard, the benefits have been manifold. The standard means the transition between care providers is smoother, enabling excellent continuity of care. By seamlessly and digitally transferring these key details, the person doesn’t have to repeat their preferences and information at every new service they encounter. One particular care home told us that when a resident was transferred to hospital, the hospital rang them to tell them they’d received the most comprehensive patient information they’d ever seen. As a software supplier, it is easy to feel removed from the impact of what we do but these stories are a touching reminder of the critical role we can play in improving end-to-end care.

“The About Me standard has improved the lives of those providing care and those receiving care.”

For people receiving care, they have a renewed sense of confidence in the care being delivered to them. For newly arrived care home residents and their families who have multiple pressures, it is a relief to know that staff have a comprehensive knowledge about the person’s preferences and can use this to deliver person-centred care around the individual. Knowing that one person has a particular prayer they like to be read to them, as one customer told us, can be the difference between providing good care and excellent personalised care.

As a business, we knew we that we needed to respond to the growing demand for person-centred features in solutions. When procuring a new solution, frontline staff are very involved in the conversation and, having implemented the About Me standard in our solution, we are able to demonstrate our commitment to supporting them in delivering person-centred care. This represents a key advantage over competitors.

“The benefits of the standard are clear. We have even created our own About Me profiles that display staff’s working preferences!”

With the About Me standard freely available to all via the PRSB website, we could simply have implemented it ourselves. But we wanted to go the extra mile and go through the Standards Partnership Scheme conformance assessment programme. The process entailed a conversation of mutual learning between PRSB and us. This meant that the standard was implemented comprehensively and expertly, which gave us the chance to improve our systems or flag any required amendments to the standard. Throughout this process, we felt supported by the PRSB conformance assessors, who worked with us to make the standard fit our needs and ensured it would be meaningful for our customers.

We also implemented the standard within our own business; each member of staff creating profiles to help colleagues gain a greater understanding of one another, as well as our preferences when it comes to working practices. This helped us understand the needs of those receiving care, who may be transferring between different settings, and how they prefer to engage with care providers. This meant that interactions became more personalised and effective, and helped in driving a person-centred culture throughout the organisation.

Our role as a software supplier is to understand how technology works alongside the professionals providing care and this shone through in the conformance process. Conformance was not a tick box exercise. We had to define our organisational culture and wider purpose by outlining our vision, mission and motivations, which helped us consider About Me as a critical tool that helps to meet broader, sectoral goals.

About Me is not an isolated feature but a living, breathing thing that adapts to the different needs of those using it. It contributes to the wider digital transformation goals we are all striving for, to improve quality of care. Once implemented in solutions across social care, information exchange will be seamless and most importantly those providing care will have the information they need to make care truly about the individual.

Andrew Coles is CEO at Person Centred Software who provide a digital care solution to over 3,000 care locations. He has more than 15 years’ experience working with well-known social care software solutions, and is passionate about how innovative technology can uniquely help to maximise the effectiveness of the support people require and make a real difference to their lives. Andrew’s focus at Person Centred Software is to ensure that every staff member working in care is continually supported with tools to help them be recognised for the high quality, person-centred care they provide to service users. Person Centred Software are leaders in enabling data sharing between services across health and care to support citizens throughout their journey. Their ‘Joined Up Care’ programme has connected over 11,000 care home beds to their GP surgeries and facilitated the sharing of information with ambulance crews and hospitals.