Evolution and innovation - Autumna continues to impress

Hospital discharges

On 14 September 2023 the UK government announced £200 million in ‘new’ funding to support NHS sustainability alongside another £40 million to assist social care and its capacity to improve patient flow through hospital.

Care sector innovator, Debbie Harris has created D.A.D. (Dashboard for Accelerated Discharge) an automated, real-time care finder system that she has been demonstrating to LGAs, ICBs, various Associations of Directors of Adult Social Services and the DHSC, in conjunction with Care England.

Using Autumna’s highly curated database of 26,000+ providers across the UK, D.A.D makes it much easier for hospital discharge teams to engage with social care providers and get real-time availability information.

“There’s a lot of talk about there being no capacity in the system,” says Debbie “but we are constantly talking to providers who have never been contacted by their local hospital discharge team even though they have availability."

“D.A.D is a way of addressing that issue and making the communication between health care and social care much more efficient.”

Preventing readmissions

Autumna is also helping to prevent readmission to hospital with its WiFi SPARK app which launched in 10 hospitals at the beginning of September.

“Imagine you’re waiting in A&E with your elderly mother because she’s had another fall,” says Debbie. “That’s precisely the time when you might be thinking it’s time to start looking for more expert help to support your mother either from a home care agency or a care home."

“With that thought fresh in your mind, you log onto the hospital’s wifi network and here is the link to Autumna’s shortlisting service."

“You can immediately start getting information of care providers who can give your mother the help and support she needs to keep her out of A&E in the future.”

The trial has gone well and the full roll-out to all Wifi SPARK’s network of hospitals is imminent.

Autumna incorporates geospatial software

Away from hospitals, and Autumna’s collaboration with geospatial software company, ESRI (UK) continues to develop.

Whether providers are acquiring properties, developing existing properties or seeking land to develop new care home builds, Autumna’s data is assisting care home providers in their growth strategies by evidencing where the greatest return on investment can be achieved based on the number of generated enquiries in any particular geographical area.

“We’re also able to use the geospatial data to advise care home owners which of their homes would benefit most from a premium profile on the Autumna platform”

“Four Seasons Health Care Group has seen enquiries from care seekers more than double across 40 care homes since using the service,” Debbie Harris

“For example, with Four Seasons, we took four years of care seeker data and plotted it on the same map with the group’s care homes and it instantly gave us a clear picture of demand hotspots, along with the type of care being sought.”

Debbie assures us there’s a lot more innovations in the pipeline, and as Autumna’s influence in the social care sector continues to evolve, we at Buyacarehome and Ownacarehome anticipate an extremely bright future for her and her team.