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More than 1,000 PainChek™ licenses are live across 22 care locations – enabling almost 600 residents to be assessed
Case studies and media releases:
- PainChek™ improves pain management in local care homes
- PainChek™ supports local care homes to understand and manage their residents’ pain
- Local care homes are using PainChek™ to manage their residents’ pain
Helping to identify and manage pain for those who are unable to communicate it verbally
PainChek™ uses artificial intelligence (AI) to automatically recognise and measure small changes in facial expressions and voice to quantify a pain score and guide carers to provide the right support.
This will support those who are unable to reliably verbalise pain and may be left in discomfort or distress, which could lead to challenging behaviours.
We anticipate that the earlier identification and treatment of the causes of pain will help to reduce hospital admissions and falls, and also ensure medications are used appropriately.
What our care services say:
“We use PainChek™ daily – sometimes during medication rounds where people request pain relief. One gentleman in particular was in quite a bit of pain. We’ve got him on the right pain relief now and his challenging behaviour doesn’t come out half as much. It’s a confidence booster because you’ve got that evidence to say that person is in pain, go with your gut instinct.” – Claire Course, Senior Care Assistant at Oak Manor Care Home
“[With PainChek™,] we are able to treat residents holistically. So if there is distressed behaviour, signs of infection… We can spot symptoms of pain early, implement pain relief as soon as possible, and monitor the effectiveness. We can reassure the families that the relative is comfortable, free from pain.” – Marta Kozowy, Deputy Manager and Registered Nurse at Anjulita Court Care Home
“PainChek™ supports the gathering of information to better support our residents. The information is easy to access and track… It’s a good tool to work alongside the GP for pain management.” – Louise Norris, Deputy Home Manager at Oak Manor Care Home
“We are in the early stages of introducing PainChek™ into day-to-day practice [at two MHA homes], however the training and support given by PainChek and the project team has been really helpful. We are looking forward to introducing the tool into a third MHA home.” – Helen Press, Senior Nurse Adviser and Caldicott Guardian, MHA Care Homes
“The PainChek™ pain assessment allows us to evaluate the effectiveness of the current pain management and helps to address other crucial aspects of elderly care, which improves their quality of life, wellbeing, and appetite. This allows them to live comfortably when their pain is managed effectively.” – deputy manager of a local care home
About the Enhanced Wellbeing Through Digital programme
This programme has been made possible following BLMK’s Digitising Social Care team successfully securing £1.1 million of funding from NHS England’s Adult Social Care Technology Fund. It will be delivered in partnership with Health Innovation East and the University of Hertfordshire.
The rate of dementia diagnosis in BLMK is higher than the national average and the condition is associated with increased hospital stays, mental health issues, undiagnosed pain, behavioural challenges, and increased safeguarding risks. This programme will offer technology to support adults to live independently, reduce avoidable hospital admissions / re-admissions, and improve care quality and safety.
The funding will be used to implement two new innovations (PainChek and RoboPets) which can be used by care home and domiciliary care staff who work with adults living with or experiencing behaviour that challenges, cognitive impairment, communication difficulty or dementia in a variety of care settings. Read more about this funding.
A team of researchers (supported by the Applied Research Collaboration East of England and the Office of Health Economics) will evaluate the acceptability, usability, cost-effectiveness and impacts as the schemes are implemented and adopted – to inform the development of an evidence-based plan for scale and spread across BLMK ICS.
For more information, please email the team.