Pete Shergill, PainChek® UK&I Country Director says:

The way PainChek® Universal assesses and manages pain in all care home residents represents a game-changer for care homes. There can be no doubt of its tangible improvement in quality of life for our ageing population.

With this latest upgrade – which is a switch-on process at no extra cost to existing customers – PainChek® becomes the gold standard for pain assessment, regardless of a resident’s condition. PainChek® Universal generates significant data on pain assessment outcomes and activity at individual, care home facility and group levels, providing insight into all areas of pain management, from data as simple as assessment frequency, to evidence-based personalised pain ‘red flags’ for care planning.

The automated documentation and fully digitised delivery, training and data storage means PainChek® Universal can make significant savings on staff time and workload, reducing any duplication of effort and eliminating the need for paperwork.

PainChek® Senior Research Scientist, Associate Professor Kreshnik Hoti adds:

The upgrade enables best practice pain management with all residents, patients and people living with pain in any environment, regardless of their ability to self-report pain. It combines the unique PainChek® App with the NRS pain scale and PainChek® Analytics, to deliver an inclusive pain assessment and management solution that will drive objectivity, accuracy and consistency, engage residents in their own care, and in turn, improve clinical processes.

Many care home residents can reliably self-report their pain, and the NRS is an established standard used to document self-reported pain levels. But sometimes their ability to reliably communicate the severity of their pain fluctuates, with causes ranging from acute delirium to the side effects of psychotropic medications.

Historically, PainChek® and the NRS have been separate pain assessment processes in terms of function and documentation. By bringing the NRS into the PainChek® app, we have combined the benefits of the two pain scales into one universal pain assessment solution, simplifying and streamlining pain assessment procedures and documentation for both care home staff and residents.