Long Term Care Software is All About Care Management By Divya Dugar, Technical Content Writer at SelectHub
Long term care software provides solutions to manage workflows, data, tracking and administration of long term care facilities, patients and staff. With an increase in aging populations, the long term care industry has seen a boom even as the healthcare industry is continuously trying to reduce increasing healthcare costs. Seventy percent of people above the age of 65 use some version of long term care. The United Nations’ World Population Ageing Report stated in 2019, there were more than 702 million people above the age of 65, and the numbers are predicted to increase over the next few years.
In 2020, the long term care industry stood at about $3,552 million. According to a 2021 report by Mordor Intelligence, the long term care industry has a current CAGR of 11.9% and is expected to be valued at $6,975 million in 2026. The effect of COVID-19 on the elderly was significant, with increases in their morbidity and mortality. To monitor such large numbers of older people, tracking nursing facilities, home care, assisted living and community centers is essential. Software and wearable devices will connect patients to these caregiving centers and are gradually becoming one of the major drivers for the long term care markets.
Executive Summary
- Long term care software is used by many types of services and facilities, including assisted living facilities, nursing homes and home care services providers.
- COVID-19 changed the scope of long term care software due to rising care requirements.
- Comparing vendors based on the features and the support they offer is helpful in choosing the right vendor for your facility.
What This Guide Covers: What is Long Term Care Software?
Long term care (LTC) is an umbrella term describing the services that help people with a disability or chronic illness. It coordinates and personalizes services to encourage independence and improve quality of life over a period of time.
It often includes help with daily activities like meal preparation, dressing, restroom use, feeding and more. Patients with chronic conditions require skilled care providers. Such care is available at various locations like at home, assisted living centers and nursing homes. While long term care may be required by people of all generations, it is more commonly used by senior citizens.
Types of Long Term Care
Services can range from a few months to years and can be formal or informal. Formal LTC providers provide personal care, health, laundry, meal and housekeeping services within a living facility for people who need supervision.
Informally, such care is provided at home and includes various clinical services like physical therapy, drug therapy and nursing and physical construction like renovating kitchens and bathrooms, adding hydraulic lifts and more. Some of the costs may be covered by medical insurance, though it varies from country to country.
Benefits
Long term care software has many benefits for patients, assisted living facilities and nursing homes.
True Interoperability
Interoperability is when different information devices, applications and systems can access, integrate and collaboratively exchange information across national, regional and organizational boundaries. True interoperability helps mitigate medication errors, missing diagnoses and duplicate lab tests, which may lead to readmission and an increase in costs.
Care Coordination
Long term care software connects patients and care providers throughout the care continuum. Skilled and unskilled caregivers manage ambulatory and independent patients and help them with their daily activities.
Insightful Analytics
LTC software helps identify areas of concern and interest to prevent issues even before they arise. Users can also create thresholds, goals and create trend lines to provide excellent care.
Key Features & Functionality
Since there are many variants and service types, they offer a variety of services. Let’s take a look at their features based on the type of service they offer.
Long Term Care software for CCRCs, SNFs and Nursing Homes
Managing residents, CCRCs, nursing homes and similar establishments requires multiple systems like electronic health records (EHR), electronic treatment administration records (eTAR), financial management, electronic medication administration records (eMAR) and billing tools to manage resident accounts, self-pay and insurance claims. Some software vendors provide all the features in one package, but most offer different modules to address other needs.
Some of these features include:
| Point of Care | Practitioners and staff often use long term care software through a mobile device at the point of care to create treatment plans, assess care and manage medications. Facility staff can also track activities like skin issues, weight management and dehydration risks. Long term care solutions ensure that staff adopt best practices. They keep records of all data like review notes and lets care providers share notes and communicate with other professionals across disciplines. |
| Safety and Compliance | Local regulations apply to long term care institutions, and software helps them manage compliance. Documentation and injury reporting are common issues. LTC software should guide the staff through preparing an incident report and ensuring compliance. Some software also has templates to record common incidents with geriatric patients. This feature also helps managers analyze incidents over time and understand common trends to take action as necessary. |
| Marketing Management | Like any other business, long term care facilities have to attract clients, and a large part of doing so is helping prospective residents choose long term care. The process is stressful as it is a monetary commitment and many options are available. Facility managers should answer questions, address special needs and follow up on time to get more business. Marketing support within long term care software stores and tracks lead details. It also sends reminders to follow up with potential clients. A few of them may even onboard new residents after they confirm their choice. |
| Charting | Usually, clinical applications comprise assessments of a Minimum Data Set (MDS). MDS is a government-mandated assessment of residents in Medicaid or Medicare-certified nursing homes. They document input orders, progress notes, and procedures while receiving and sending care summaries. |
| Staff Management | Managing the workforce is a big challenge for facility managers. High turnover, tight budgets and worker shortages make scheduling difficult. Tracking employee qualifications, leave requests, overtime, resident-caregiver ratios and overtime worked is essential. It is important not to overwork employees and keep the best interests of patients in mind. The right long term care software can help maintain the delicate balance. Managers can reduce scheduling errors, maintain records for reporting and compliance, manage staff profiles, training details and more. Some tools also allow staff to log in and maintain their records, schedules and shifts. |
| Visitor Management | Long term care facilities have frequent visitors as family members and others like vendors, contractors and more visit the premises. Maintaining records of visitors and who are present on-site is necessary to secure the premises. Other security measures like visitor badges can track anyone who checks in. Software solutions for visitor management maintain records and keep the facilities secure. Other software like EHR includes visitor management features. |
Long term Care Software for Independent or Assisted Living
Though independent living facilities (ILFs) and assisted living facilities (ALFs) share similarities with nursing homes like billing, number of patients and workflows, ALFs and ILFs don’t always need all the features required by full-service nursing homes. They don’t require Medicaid or Medicare certification and don’t need to handle residents’ care. Hence, they don’t need MDS or EMR solutions. Depending on the number of residents and their needs, they may deploy other solutions like eMAR or eTAR.
Long term Care Software for Home Care
Home care software solutions and nursing homes need similar features like notes, eMAR, orders, eMAR, GPS tracking, visitor management and more. Mobile access and applications are necessary features for home care providers.
Cloud-based deployment strategies are common for such solutions, and some features to look out for are scheduling, billing and accounting, marketing and point of care support.
Software Comparison
Comparing vendors for long term care facilities can be an overwhelming process. Checking references and hiring an attorney to check vendor agreements are two important steps for buyers. Other effective tactics buyers can keep in mind are:
- Assess vendor’s financial viability
- Prepare a request for proposal (RFP)
- Estimate TCO
- Senior executive sponsorship
- Hire third-party interrogators
- Determine ROI
- Develop scripts for demos
- Access affected processes
- Define budgets
Cost & Pricing Considerations
The price of the software depends on the features you require, your vendor and the deployment strategy. Some other price considerations are:
- What kind of facility do you want to manage? Vendors offer different features for different types of facilities and the type of staff you have.
- How many staff members require access to the software? Many vendors charge by the number of users.
- How many residents will the software manage?
- What kind of features do you require - visitor management, marketing support, document management and more?
- Does it integrate with other software like EHR, eTAR, eMAR and more?
- Does it support compliance and interface with national and local registries?
Questions to Ask
Before shortlisting vendors, ask your staff the following questions:
- What do your staff want to manage with long term care software?
- Does it have a mobile app? How do you and your staff prefer entering data - via desktops, mobile devices, tablets?
- Do you have templates you would like to use in the future?
- What other software do you use now, and does it integrate with your existing software like EHR, eTAR and eMAR?
- What additional features does your staff require?
Now that you have figured out your requirements, ask your vendors the following questions:
- How customizable is the software? Does it have pre-built templates? Can users create their own templates for future use?
- Is it integratable with other solutions?
- Can the same long term care software be scaled as the number of facilities/patients increase?
- Is it ONC certified?
- How can you contact support? Do you have to buy premium support?
- How is data security handled?
- Where is data stored?
In Conclusion
Adopting long term care software can be a critical choice as it would affect satisfaction levels of care provided to patients and caregivers themselves. The numbers are booming: 82 million people are predicted to suffer from dementia in 2030, and with those values rising to 152 million in 2050. Managing such numbers is possible when facilities and caregivers adopt long term care software. Government policies like HITECH improve healthcare parameters across aspects like efficiency, management, safety and quality.
The most important step here is to do your research, find your requirements and match them with the features you need. To add to that, look for subscription models that suit your budget and deployment strategies. Long term care software certainly improves the productivity and efficiency of assisted living facilities and nursing homes. To add to that, with most software providing mobile applications, providing better care has certainly become easier.
