Strong communities are vital to the health and wellbeing of their residents. This is especially true in retirement communities and aged care home settings where residents rely on staff and their community to flourish. A relationship-centred care approach that takes the experiences of residents, staff and visitors into account is one of the best ways to help ensure a healthy and strong community. And, collecting feedback from each of these groups is essential for genuine relationship-centred care that results in a strong community—and happier, more vibrant lives for care home residents.
The impact of communities
The Care Quality Commision’s 2020 State of Care report illustrates just how essential a strong community is. Communication, collaboration, and shared decision making were three factors that helped some care providers pull ahead over others. In care homes, as the Care Quality Commission says, “Communities matter”. The importance of care systems to work closely together and collaborate to maintain a community of care is vitally important.
How feedback can help with relationship-centred care
Relationship-centered care focuses not only on the relationship between the health care staff and residents, but also between staff members and the broader relationship with the community. Collecting feedback on each of these relationships helps check the pulse of how well each part integrates with the whole:
For Residents: residents can provide important insight into their experience of the community, whether or not it meets their needs, and whether or not they feel a sense of belonging. Having a place to leave anonymous feedback can also be a crucial outlet to help identify issues before they turn into larger problems.
For Staff Members: staff can offer feedback on how management initiatives are working on the ground. Giving staff a platform to voice their concerns honestly with no fear of repercussion and providing assurance that management will listen and act will have a significant impact on staff motivation and engagement.
For the Community: visitors, family, and friends can shed light on their experience of staff, the facilities, and any concerns they might have about their loved one in the care home. As an important part of a resident’s care team, family and friends can offer valuable insight into the community that insiders might not see clearly.
In order to collect feedback from all these groups, care home managers need a solution that lets them create bespoke surveys for each community role. Community roles could be broken down further for an even clearer picture. For example, staff groups could include cleaning staff, administrative staff, health support workers, and nursing staff. Each group could have unique questions that relate to their role in the community. In turn, this information can shed light on the way each group experiences the larger community.
ViewPoint solutions are flexible enough to collect feedback from all health care providers, residents, and visitors in the community, from kiosks or mobile devices. They offer a quick and efficient way to capture a 360 degree view of the community, and all the relationships in it. With live feedback captured on an easy to read dashboard, management can monitor the state of their care home closely and address issues before they escalate.
Challenges in collecting care home feedback
Despite the benefits that feedback can offer, care homes can face unique challenges in collecting it. With time of the essence, finding simple to use feedback solutions that are robust, cost-effective and deliver consistent levels of qualitative and quantitative data is essential. Setting up quick tap surveys with just a few questions can help. ViewPoint’s solutions are on 24/7, so staff can take a short survey whenever they have a few seconds spare.
For residents accessibility is key, as some residents may have limitations and may not be capable of filling out feedback forms. Giving residents the option of a feedback kiosk or a quick tap survey on a tablet means your surveys will be accessible to everyone and will give residents an opportunity to give feedback more easily.
Feedback for evolving care
Retirement villages and care home communities are always changing, which can be another barrier to maintaining a feedback system. From new programming to staff turnover, each small change can have a significant impact on the community. Having a flexible feedback system means you can update questions to ask about the specific effects of those changes. That way, you can act to offset the negative changes, and reinforce the positive ones.
Collecting feedback from multiple sources can be a challenge, but it’s essential for true relationship-centred care. Good relationships are the building blocks of a good community—and good communities result in happier residents.
Feedback in relationship-centred care should be an ongoing initiative, since no community is ever the same from one moment to the next. As communities evolve, our approach to maintaining them must evolve as well. ViewPoint kiosks make the process easy, with fully customisable surveys that can evolve as quickly as your care home does. Collecting feedback can help make sure they’re evolving in the right direction.
About ViewPoint feedback solutions
ViewPoint helps organisations to radically improve the quality of their services. Our interactive feedback technology engages with customers, employees and stakeholders to understand their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the experience they encountered.
Our unique smiley face surveys attract, engage, and encourage users to leave their thoughts. Four reasons feedback kiosks are the preferred feedback collection method:
- Lower cost customer survey solution
- Suitable for all environments
- Reliable and always on
- Highly accurate insights
Find out more about how real-time surveys can help you assess customer and staffing issues, monitor improvements, and compare departments to deliver the best service possible.
