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A care plan is one of the first steps for ensuring the best in-home care to a person who requires professional support. It is a road map for quality care between trained caregivers, medical professionals, and the client with their family.

The care plan outlines when and how a caregiver performs tasks to meet the clients’ needs. These may include Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) for personal care assistance like grooming, meal preparation, laundry, and transportation to appointments or social activities. The care plan assesses clients’ unique needs, outlining the support they require and how caregivers and agencies will provide it. These plans are based on the clients’ unique needs differing from one person to the other. Each care plan is customized and curated to serve the same purposes:

1. Ensure you receive quality care regardless of the in-home caregiver on duty.

2. Making sure that the care the elderly receives is recorded.

3. Supporting caregivers to identify and manage care needs.

One requisite for a well-written care plan is that it should be flexible. When care needs change, plans must be reviewed and modified to serve clients better. By doing so, you will ensure that the level of care you provide meets those needs.

What Does Care Plan Include?

One of the most crucial things when creating a care plan is that the care recipient and family members are actively involved in the planning process. To be effective the plan must include the following:

1. The care needs

2. Type of support required

3. Desired outcomes

4. A person required to provide care

5. How care & support will be offered

6. Records of care records

7. The costs of care services

Depending on the support needed, your care plan may include everything from non-medical in-home care to house adaptations to allow for greater independence.

What are the Benefits of a Well-Written Care Plan?

• A Roadmap for the Caregivers:

  Families are under tremendous stress when managing care and ensuring the well-being of their loved one.  With the care plan’s roadmap, caregivers understand the end goal for the client and know what services to provide to ensure that well-being.

• Show Collaboration:

  A care plan created and supported by all the people referenced above ensures a better focus on the effort of care, much more defined goals, and optimal team communication.

• Justify and Support the Need for Services:

  When home care auditors review a chart, they must question all that needs to be done, why they’re doing it, and the benefits.

  Additionally, when a chart undergoes an audit, the care plan must be a source of truth for quality care needs.

• Supports Homebound Status:

  Baby boomers today look forward to receiving quality care in the comfort of their homes. In-home care agencies incorporate plans to help caregivers evaluate the services needed and how to provide a work environment to meet long-term goals.

• Welcome Participation:

  Caregiving can be complex, especially when caregivers need support and family members don’t get enough assistance. Seamless communication takes place when the family is involved with creating the care plan. With a detailed care plan, caregivers can ensure that everyone at home is on the same page, encouraging everyone to participate.

  All of this allows for better client experience and can mean extended care for the client which in turn creates a positive impact on your bottom line.

  What are the Tips for Utilizing a Home Care Plan?

  As you may have already experienced, caregiver shortage has the non-medical care industry searching for solutions to prevent employee churn. One of the solutions is evaluating the top caregiver complaints and improving caregiver retention.

  Some tips to make your care plan the most effective are:

• Set Up S.M.A.R.T Goals:

  Make sure to create SMART goals for the client – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Oriented Goals.

  Making the goals smart, produces informed content and agreed upon care. Home care experts emphasize the importance of goals, which helps measure and identify all that’s done.

• Assign Care Plan Actions:

  Care plan Actions play a crucial role in interventions for clients and caregivers.

  Assigning those care plan actions helps agencies provide a clear understanding to the care circle. Additionally, care plan actions help caregivers keep themselves and the agency accountable. This will help specific care actions from being missed inadvertently.

• Maintain a Care Workflow:

  Incorporating a care plan into the workflow helps drive activities on care plan content, avoiding double entry and documenting straightaway to the care plan.

  Having home care software that helps curate a care plan and incorporate it into your care workflow allows caregivers to work on specific goals, ensuring documentation supporting the care plan. Additionally, it allows them to make incremental evaluations.

  A care plan helps the agency get insights into the caregiver’s progress, view some incremental changes, avoiding discouragement when they see goal accomplishments.

  Having your care plan involved in your workflow is important. Therefore, make sure that you are using the documentation correctly. Discrepancies can ruin your care plan, after all.

• Evaluate Properly:

  Evaluations are critical to evaluate the goals you have met and where you need to improve. In-home caregivers must evaluate goals to meet regulatory requirements, verifying how care plans are completed while making room for adjustments.

  An evaluation helps the client become more involved in their health journey, it lets them celebrate small accomplishments and provide feedback when goals aren’t met.

Final Walkthroughs

Care plans are very flexible, and agencies can easily update and amend them anytime. Your care plan must be reviewed regularly, allowing you to know what’s working and what’s not.

As the needs of the care recipient change and improve over time, the care plan, too, needs to be changed. Since long term care is exceptionally challenging, the caregiver’s needs also increase, requiring changes in care plans.

With CareSmartz360- an all-in-one home care software, you can save a care plan once the assessment is complete. The plan is available on the client’s profile page and is accessible to the caregiver via a mobile app or portal. Exporting a care plan as Excel or PDF is easy as it helps with added convenience, especially when the staff or family want a printed copy.

A detailed care plan helps ensure your client receives the proper care at the right time. Thus, whether your client’s family member is living close or far from their loved one, a care plan will give them a sigh of relief showing that their loved one is comfortable, safe, and happy at home.