With one in six people globally expected to be aged 60 or over by 2030, care homes are under growing pressure. Workforce shortages, high turnover and a lack of integration between health and social care are making it increasingly difficult to deliver safe, high-quality care using traditional, reactive models.
Hospital avoidance is no longer just a system priority, it is in fact a practical necessity for care homes. Preventing avoidable hospital admissions in your care home will enable you to:
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- Improve resident outcomes – it is crucial to decrease emotional distress for the resident, as hospital environments can be stressful and increase the risk of delirium, particularly for those living with dementia.
- Support care staff – when residents return from hospital stays, workload often increases as they may require more intensive care after discharge. Reducing avoidable admissions therefore lowers the administrative burden and improves care planning co-ordination and communication.
- Manage operational impact – admissions to hospital mean empty beds in the short-term, affecting continuity and contributing to lost income, as some funding models stop payments when residents are hospitalised. There is also pressure to accept discharges quickly, to reduce pressure on already overstretched NHS services. But increased dependency does not always match up with increased funding, leading to system level effects such as hospital readmission cycles.
Shifting from reactive to preventative care
Reactive care means responding after an incident has occurred, whilst preventative care focuses on identifying risk early and intervening before harm happens. Technology plays a vital role in making this shift possible.
In residents living with dementia or other conditions that affect their ability to communicate reliably, deterioration in health may not be immediately apparent. Technology that supports early detection and continuous monitoring enables the identification of trends and patterns, allowing timely intervention before a situation escalates.
A preventative approach reduces avoidable hospital admissions, improves resident wellbeing and supports safer, more sustainable care delivery. By identifying risks earlier and acting sooner, care homes can protect residents’ wellbeing whilst easing pressure on the wider healthcare system.
Practical steps to promote hospital avoidance
1. Identify early warning signs
Pain, changes in behaviour or reduced mobility are often early indicators of deterioration. Regular, consistent assessment helps staff act before issues escalate. PainChek helps care homes shift from ‘we think something is wrong’ to ‘we can show something is changing and act early.’
2. Prevent falls by managing pain proactively
Falls are a leading cause of hospital admissions, and undetected and unmanaged pain significantly increases the risk of falls. Tools that help staff identify pain at the point of care, including for residents who struggle to reliably communicate, can reduce falls and improve quality of life.
3. Review medication risks regularly
Care home residents take an average of seven medications a day. Polypharmacy increases the risk of side effects, drug interactions and falls, as well as potential medication errors. Monitoring for changes in pain and behaviour can highlight medication-related issues early and trigger timely reviews.
4. Use technology to support staff, not replace them
Preventative technology provides insights that help staff make better decisions, reduce guesswork and prioritise care where it’s most needed, especially during busy shifts.
5. Improve clinical decision-making
Informed clinical decision-making can be achieved more rapidly with medical devices such as PainChek, which support accurate, consistent, and high-quality assessments and provide a robust evidence base to justify escalation and intervention when required.
6. Embed prevention into everyday care
Make preventative assessments part of daily routines such as medication rounds, not an added task. Consistency is key to spotting patterns and preventing avoidable harm.
Insights from care home managers
Digital tools like PainChek® enable faster clinical decisions and earlier interventions, helping care homes prevent harm before it happens. Identifying and addressing pain early means hospital visits can be prevented.
Care homes involved in Bedfordshire, Luton, and Milton Keynes (BLMK) Health and Care Partnership’s Digitising Social Care programme are successfully using PainChek® to drive down hospital admissions and ambulance callouts.
Cecilia Amadek, House Manager, Oak Manor Care Home, said:
“Using PainChek® in our care home has helped us spot pain much more easily, leading to reduced spend of money with the NHS. We don’t need to call ambulances out often and residents don’t need to go to hospital. They don’t need to have paracetamol prescribed as often because with PainChek®, we can see if they are in pain or not.”
Marta Kozowy, Deputy Manager and Registered Nurse, Anjulita Court, said:
“Finally, I can see we are able to treat residents holistically, so if there are distressed behaviour or signs of infection, we can add in additional pain assessment for the resident. I’m able to monitor whether the pain assessments and prescribed pain relief is effectively delivered to the resident and if they are comfortable. With PainChek®, we can spot symptoms of pain early, implement pain relief as soon as possible, and monitor the effectiveness. Also, we can reassure the families that their relative is comfortable and free from pain.”
Interesting in learning more? Find out how you can drive down hospital admissions in your care home in our free resource, Prevention vs Reaction: Why Care Providers Must Rethink Their Approach to Tech, here.
To learn how PainChek® could support best-practice pain management in your organisation,
book a session with our team.
