psHEALTH, UK’s leader in online case management and workflow solutions and The Community Gateway CIC, a Social Enterprise providing consultancy to Local Government and the NHS, today announced that they have extended their partnership to develop Reablement IT solutions for Local Authorities, NHS organisations and the independent sector.
Reablement is a process by which a short burst of support and training is provided to increase service users’ independence. “Reablement has moved to the top of the homecare agenda driven by a strong evidence base of significant cost-savings”, says Richard Haynes of The Community Gateway. “A number of studies suggest that the need for homecare can be reduced by as much as 60% resulting in significant realisable cost savings for councils”, he adds.
“Independent research has identified legacy IT systems as a one of the barriers to implementing a more outcomes focussed service, such as a successful Reablement offer”, says Ingolv Urnes , Principal at psHEALTH. “Reablement requires a new approach and therefore new technology, and simply creating a reablement contract in a legacy system built for traditional maintenance homecare does not meet the full requirement.
Outcome reporting and good management information is key. Our solution, eABLE, can be cost-effectively deployed either inside councils or by third party providers. eABLE can easily integrate with councils principal care management systems used for managing longer term care and support service packages”, Ingolv adds. To date, Reablement services have principally been provided by council staff. “Traditionally, councils have been reluctant to contract with the independent sector for Reablement given the perceived conflict of interest (most potential providers also deliver traditional homecare).
eABLE strengthens the reablement service offer, whether it is an inhouse one, or externally provided. It is widely accepted that given the lower cost base of the independent sector and greater political will of the coalition Government for a smaller Government, eABLE levels the playing field for local authorities competing as providers, but also helps independent providers turn Reablement from a potential threat into a very real commercial opportunity”, Ingolv comments.
eABLE is developed on psHEALTH’s award winning platform and delivered as a fully hosted software-as-a-service. “It is a model that works well in today’s fiscal environment. There are no upfront costs or investments required, and there is an opportunity for local authorities to leverage collaborative service design and procurement”, says Dr Hemal Varambhia of psHEALTH.
psHEALTH is the UK’s leading provider of SaaS-based IT Solutions for funders and providers of health and social care. psHEALTH specialises in rapid development of customised workflow and case management software across Reablement, Home Care, Extracare, Supported Housing, Residential Care, Nursing Care, Corporate Care, Disease Management, and Virtual Wards. All solutions are delivered fully hosted with the benefit of NO upfront cost or investment in hardware or infrastructure. All clients need is access to the internet.
psHEALTH’s solutions are based on a comprehensive set of building blocks such as online referral, assessments forms, SLA management, scheduling & time recording, etc. It also includes unique real-time outcome analytics, built-in content management and a collaboration portal.