Digital care systems play a crucial role in how well these goals are set, tracked, and adjusted. In this chapter, we’ll explore how digital systems can enhance goal-tracking with practical use cases and examples.
Prioritise the individual
This is foundational to tracking and measuring goals. Goals only work if they’re tailored to the individual service user, and, of course, some goals will have different metrics for success.
Quantitative goals
For instance, if a service user needs to undertake a course of physiotherapy to improve mobility, digital systems can include dedicated goal-tracking features, detailed steps, and milestones. This ensures that each goal is broken down into manageable parts that can be easily tracked and updated in real-time. Digital records can capture frequency, intensity, and any challenges encountered, providing a comprehensive overview of progress.
Qualitative goals
For more qualitative goals, such as a desire to travel around Europe, digital systems provide flexibility to capture nuanced progress through notes, photos, and videos. This enhances the richness of the recorded experience and allows for a more holistic view of the service user’s journey towards their goal. Integration of various media ensures a complete and engaging record.
Whether the goals are quantitative or qualitative, digital systems offer superior capabilities in terms of real-time updates, ease of access, and comprehensive record-keeping. This ensures that all aspects of a service user's progress are accurately documented and easily retrievable, leading to better outcomes and more personalised care.
Understand how you’re going to gather feedback
Benchmarking and measuring success is critical, but gathering and documenting feedback is equally important.
Digital systems streamline this process, allowing for efficient collection and analysis of feedback through online survey tools and digital feedback forms. These tools enable quick gathering of insights from service users and staff, which can be seamlessly integrated into goal setting and adjustment processes.
In digital systems, adjustments can be made in real-time based on electronically received feedback, ensuring immediate incorporation of new insights. This dynamic approach ensures that feedback is actionable and promptly reflected in care plans.
Visualising trends
Visualising progress has multiple benefits, from celebrating achievements to facilitating access to relevant documentation during CQC inspections or meetings with senior managers.
Digital systems excel in visualising progress. For example, digital care platforms like Log my Care make it easier to embed photos and videos, providing a comprehensive view of each individual’s progress and making it easy to share updates with stakeholders.
By leveraging digital systems, you can ensure that all aspects of goal setting, tracking, feedback gathering, and visualisation are handled efficiently and effectively. This leads to a more responsive, personalised, and high-quality care experience for service users.
Conduct regular goal reviews
A goal-setting strategy only works if you’re regularly reviewing those goals.
It’s vital to conduct meetings to discuss progress with key stakeholders and adjust goals as needed. We’d always recommend making sure these goal review settings are collaborative, and include all stakeholders.
Digital systems make it easy to conduct these reviews. Below, you can see a key example from Log my Care’s own platform.
Example: documenting user goals with Log my Care’s Outcomes & Goals feature
Log my Care’s Outcomes and Goals feature is one of the most effective ways to set impactful goals.
It enables care teams to actively collaborate with service users to create person-centred goals, monitor progress through action plans, and track outcomes that you can easily evidence in an inspection.
With the Outcomes and Goals feature, managers can evidence service user involvement in the goal-setting process by empowering them to collaborate and countersign each goal that they set.
This demonstrates the service user’s agreement to the goals that have been set for them.
After adding goals to the platform, the care team and service users have a range of functionalities at their fingertips, including:
- Creating action plans to break down goals into small, achievable steps, fostering collaboration between service users and the care team.
- Linking relevant care plans to specific goals, providing a comprehensive view for the care team, ensuring holistic care delivery.
- Linking care logs to specific goals to manage progress efficiently and maintain evidence of the steps taken to achieve a goal.
- Increasing oversight with a built-in timeline to keep the team informed about goal-related changes, such as linking care logs and service user goal signatures. Time and name stamps improve accountability and provide evidence of support.
Learn more about Outcomes and Goals HERE.
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