App transports the care industry into the digital age

For decades, the healthcare industry has recognised that their current system of paper-based patient records is not sustainable yet currently, the majority of care homes still use antiquated, paper-based, records to hold medical and care information on patients. Not only does using paper-based systems waste a large amount of caregivers time but they are also a lot more susceptible to mistakes being made - with potentially devastating consequences.

By providing a patient’s medical records in a digital and real-time format, within an app, KareInn allows carers to not only provide a higher standard of care but also to make better informed care decisions. Alongside this, carers using KareInn are saving, on average, one hour per shift which they previously spent record keeping. Given the increasing pressures on the nine million carers in the UK, being able to spend more time providing care, rather than doing administration, is invaluable.

The founders of KareInn, John Lanyon and Alex Kenney, both experienced the pressures that carers were under when they had to care for their own parents. After seeing, first hand, how difficult coordinating care can be within care homes Alex decided to leave his high-flying career in the city with the ambition of making a real and lasting difference to the care industry.

Kenney said: “When we looked under the bonnet of the traditional care industry, we could see the opportunity digital presented to have a real impact in supporting caregivers and enable them to do the best possible job and remind them why they got into care in the first place.”

Investment support was provided  by the Innovation Warehouse, spokesman Stephen Bloch commented: “KareInn were a good fit for our AgeTech investment initiative. As London’s AgeTech Hub, we believe commercially viable silver economy and AgeTech businesses to be an important part of the UK’s startup scene.”

According to Age UK, by our late eighties, more than one in three of us will have difficulties undertaking five or more tasks of daily living unaided. This fact, married with our rapidly ageing population, only serves to underline how much products like KareInn will be invaluable in increasing the quality and efficiency of social care.