Evaluating the Impact of a New Interactive Digital Solution for Collecting Care Quality In-formation for Residenial Homes

Collecting and analysing timely and accurate information about the quality of care that is delivered to older people in residential homes is a challenge. Most current approaches to collecting this information are manual, and add time, cost and human error to them. Interactive digital technologies have the potential to reduce the time consumed, cost and errors in these processes, which in turn can support resolution of an important social challenge. However, designing these interactions can be problematic. In this paper we report the use of a new interactive digital solution that was designed to improve the completeness and timeliness of care quality data that was collected from 233 residential nursing and care homes for older people in and around London. Use of the digital solution led to a significant increase in the numbers of residential homes that submitted the correct care quality information by each quarterly deadline. However, qualitative evidence from the residential homes revealed low-level usability problems experienced by care staff that might be indicative of continuing usability issues in the care sector. The paper ends with lessons drawn to improve uptake of digital technologies in residential care.