Scotland’s largest care provider for Veterans, Erskine, has reinforced its reputation as a leader in the provision of person-centred, tech-assisted care by integrating use of the world’s first AI-powered pain assessment tool, PainChek®.

The PainChek® app is available for use on mobile devices and uses AI (artificial intelligence) to analyse micro-facial expressions indicative of pain.

Erskine has adopted the market-leading technology to enable staff caring for residents within the charity’s four care homes – totalling 339 registered beds – to quickly and easily identify, quantify and document the pain assessment of every care home resident, regardless of their ability to self-report their pain, including those resident’s living with dementia or a significant cognitive impairment.

Established in 1916, Erskine is a charity that cares for Army, Navy and RAF veterans and their spouses at its four care homes across sites in Bishopton, Glasgow and Edinburgh. It also runs a Veterans’ Village in Bishopton, comprising of 44 cottages, five assisted living apartments, 24 Traditional Supported Accommodation Apartments and an Activity Centre.

“With the backing of LIBOR grant funding, we’ve rolled out PainChek’s innovative technology across all four of our care homes to assist our registered nurses and senior care assistants in the assessment of residents’ pain, prompt person-centred care, appropriate treatment and provide a clear record of intervention and outcome.” Derek Barron, Director of Care at Erskine explains.

“The introduction of the PainChek app supports us to provide excellent care to residents by identifying those who may be in pain,” Derek adds. “This is especially important for people living with dementia who may not be able to verbalise that they are in pain and become distressed due to this. Using PainChek also supports Erskine’s digital strategy and mission to lead by collaborative example in delivering outstanding, person-centred care. Technology is deeply embedded in supporting the provision and delivery of care at Erskine – our social care professionals are highly digitally engaged and experienced at using tech to enhance, rather than replace, the care they provide to residents to maximise their potential and quality of life.  Having a tool that directly supports the wellbeing of residents living with dementia is important in supporting us to deliver the right care at the right time.

“We continually strive to evolve our digital strategy with tools that seamlessly link in with our care plan system, with the underpinning aim of delivering excellence in care. By employing the use of PainChek’s clinically approved, highly accessible tool, we can be sure of best practice pain management for our residents to support them in enjoying a sense of comfort and fulfilment in every phase of post-service life.”

Pete Shergill, PainChek® UK&I Country Director says: “We are immensely proud to be working with the 105-year-old charity Erskine to support the assessment and management of pain in its residents across the entirety of its care home estate, and thrilled to be supporting Erskine’s person-centric approach with PainChek’s technology for the benefit of its resident veterans, as well as the professionals that care for them.

“Erskine is leading by example in recognising the importance of accurate pain assessment for effective chronic and acute pain management, ensuring that its resident veterans feel valued, respected and have access to gold standard care and support.”

“The way PainChek® assesses and manages pain in all care home residents represents a game-changer for the social care sector in the UK, and there can be no doubt as to the tangible improvement in quality of life for our ageing population,” says Pete, “Not only this, but for social care professionals using PainChek, the key benefits include a complete point of care pain assessment solution; automated documentation to deliver time savings for staff with no duplication of effort, double handling or paperwork; fully digitised delivery, training and storage, with CMS integration across leading providers globally; and PainChek® Analytics to monitor and improve assessment practices and pain outcomes.”

The latest upgrade of the PainChek® app – first developed to enable care workers to identify and manage pain in people living with dementia or cognitive impairments – can now be used with care and residential home residents who can self-report their pain. PainChek® Universal, features the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) – an established standard used to document self-reported pain levels – within the one digital environment, and is available as a free upgrade for existing PainChek users and features as standard for all future subscribers.

For more information, visit: https://www.painchek.com/intelligent-pain-assessment-tool-uk/