CoolCare talks to Stacey Linn, Managing Director of Ideal Care Homes, to see how the care home management software has revolutionised admin within the care home operator.
Ideal Care Homes operates a group of 25 care homes across the North West and Midlands. They have been using CoolCare due to the incredible clarity and control it offers over group-wise operational management. Stacey is proud that Ideal has transformed their administrative practices following the introduction of CoolCare, which has led to tens of thousands of pounds worth of savings, whilst delivering watertight, but easily accessible, record-keeping that formerly required one additional member of staff per home to manage.
Stacey has been able to streamline processes while staying on top of accurate timesheet management and compliance since using CoolCare4. Stacey’s current priority is a clear focus on occupancy in the wake of the pandemic. Logging into CoolCare at least five times a day – on whatever device she has to hand, Stacey uses the Occupancy Dashboard, Admission Pipeline and Average Fee Dashboard for daily snapshots of Ideal’s current position.
One of the most important functions that CoolCare4 gives Stacey, is the ability to see what’s happening regarding staffing in every home, without the need to be there in person. She can constantly monitor shift numbers through the Staff on Shift widget to see if there are too many or too few staff working at any given moment. Keeping up to date with the budget is also managed through easily viewed comparisons of budgeted hours vs. actual hours being worked so that Stacey and her team can tell instantly if they are over or under budget. Stacey has particular praise for the Snap to Shift functionality that measures the hours worked to the minute.
coolcare drives conversions.
Stacey uses CoolCare4’s pipeline functionality to measure enquiry levels; with a thorough understanding of what it takes to convert leads into residents, CoolCare4 allows Stacey to maintain a constant analysis in real-time. If the number of queries isn’t where she’d like them to be, Stacey uses the data generated by CoolCare4 to dig deeper, understand why this is and to put measures into place to drive numbers up. Stacey cites her usage of the Occupancy Management tooler as key to positive changes across the team in terms of enquiry pipeline accountability. The task dashboard is monitored by the Front of house manager and they can see what needs to be done and when. Stacey can drop in at any time – and does – to see that things are on track. With hundreds of ‘greens’ every day, it makes it easier to tackle the ‘reds’, sitting down with someone to understand what steps need to be taken, by when and by whom. This has proved game-changing in terms of keeping the pipeline up-to-date and ensures that enquiries are dealt with consistently across all properties.
care compliance.
In terms of compliance, Stacey sets her standards high, with training benchmarked at 93%. In order to achieve this, care homes download training reports straight away from CoolCare, which can be fed back into the team and used to drive performance. This is a key part of everyday life at Ideal Care Homes. As well as using the training matrixes in-house for data management, these can also be shared these with CQC inspectors, which are much easier to read than the previously-used Excel sheets.
Stacey also pointed out the difference that CoolCare’s virtual noticeboards make to family and visitors, as the staff that are on duty that day will displayed be on screen. Stacey is driven by ensuring high standards are maintained and she appreciates the added layer of communication that the virtual noticeboards deliver that to that end.
CoolCare gives visibility, oversight and a benchmark for expectations from for the homes in the Ideal Care Homes Group. Expectations are clearly set out in relation to key business metrics, so that with the the enquiry processes as, staffing budgets, attendance and fees are all standardised across all our properties and everyone is working to the same goals transparently.
CoolCare is essential for monitoring and maintaining these standards.
