A client of mine was recently put on hospice. Because they were a fall risk and had considerable special needs, the hospice nurse recommended 24/7 care.
It is hard to trust the care of a loved parent to strangers at any point, but especially when on hospice. In this case, until that point the client’s adult child had relied on private companions for her parent. It was incredibly daunting (impossible) to fathom the amount of mental energy and time it would take to hire, train, schedule and monitor all the helpers needed to make this recommendation a reality.
I recommended an agency, but the daughter was concerned that there would be too many different caregivers coming in and out who didn't know her Parent’s special needs. She also wanted to stay abreast of what they were observing and doing during their shifts.
What was most impressive to me—and I had not come across this before—was the Family Portal that was immediately launched, where the family could log in and see who was working what shifts for the coming week or weeks. The portal also held a record of the contact information of the family members with Power of Attorney, a backlog of who worked when, paid and upcoming invoices, and other helpful information.
What I was especially struck by was that as soon as a caregiver arrived for work, they would log into their own portal to stamp their start time, as well as see any special instructions from the nurse about care needs (for example, this past week, my client needed to be turned every two hours to avoid bedsores). The caregivers could also read notes uploaded by the caregiver working the previous shift.
When I asked the director of Aware Senior Care, Tim Murray about this tool, he said, "As someone who has worked in technology throughout my career, I can attest this is a product that is easy to use and works."
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