This article explains in detail the different sections of the Monthly Summary Email.
App Set-up Section:
This section provides a general overview of Ally App set-up for the care home:
How many residents are registered on Ally App.
Of those registered residents, how many residents NEED consent forms signed.
As a general practice, Home managers should regularly add new residents, and update old residents when needed.
Staff Use Section:
This section summarizes the staffs’ interaction with Ally App for the past week/month.
The first table enlists daily/weekly numbers for:
Number of residents that were NOT monitored in Ally App. Tip: This number (for example 2 on Monday) when compared to the App Set-up section (for example 17 registered residents on Ally App) provides insight into how comprehensively residents are being monitored daily/weekly. If this number is high, the Home manager should encourage staff to start Ally Acoustic monitoring for every resident in the care home.
Number of staff that logged into Ally App and signed up for night-shift. Managers can compare this to their daily rota’s for the past week/month and encourage staff to log-in and use the Ally App.
The second table summarizes key staff performance metrics and device-status metrics:
Average staff response time: Each staff’s weekly/monthly average is first calculated based on how many days they were active on the App. Finally, an average of all staffs’ response time is calculated and reported. Hence, this metric gives insight into overall performance of the staff as pertaining to the time they take to respond to an alert from the time they receive notification for the same.
Good or Bad Use of Audio Review: Using the daily email summary as its source, this metric summarizes how staff are responding to acoustic activity-based alerts. If a staff member on an average over the past week/month, dismisses audio alerts correctly (good), when 25% or less of such alerts end with a check where the resident is found asleep (number of alerts that could have been dismissed).
Do Staff Still do Regular Checks Where Residents Didn't Need Care: Using the daily email summary as its source, this metric summarizes how many staff members are still doing regular checks where a resident did not need care - this includes the unscheduled checks and time-based rounds where a resident is either found to be asleep or awake and settled. A staff member is said to be performing such regular checks if, on an average over the past week/month, the number of instances of these occurrences is more than 4 per night.
Average duration of time App was used for each night: Duration of app usage per night per resident is defined as the duration between the scheduler being activated and deactivated. This metric is then aggregated for each resident based on the number of nights App was used for the resident, and then averaged across all residents to give a general idea of how long a resident is monitored on a daily basis. If this number is low, say less than 5 hours, Home managers should advise the staff to monitor residents for longer periods as a night shift is usually 8 hours long.
Average number of residents NOT Monitored each night
Average Number of Devices Offline During Night-shift: A device is said to be offline during night shift if the device has been offline for at least 4 hours - this could be one 4 hour period or divided across multiple periods over the night shift. This metric aggregates the number of offline devices each night over the past week/month.
The subsequent note that follows staff metrics gives an overview of how many alerts could have been avoided to free up staff time and disturb residents less. The number of such avoidable checks includes following types of checks performed in the previous week/month:
Daily average number of acoustic activity alerts that result in a resident either being asleep or awake and settled
Daily average number of unscheduled checks where a resident is reported either being asleep or awake and settled
Daily average number of time-based rounds where a resident is reported either being asleep or awake and settled
Residents’ Settings Update:
Managers should regularly update residents’ settings if needed based on:
If a resident’s care need has changed
A resident has become a fall risk
A resident has had a health incident prompting more or less time based rounds
Insufficient Ally App Usage:
If the Ally App usage does not meet minimum-use criteria, “Insufficient Ally App Usage” email is sent instead of the summary email. Insufficient usage is defined as:
Weekly: More than 50% of residents registered on Ally are not monitored for 4 or more days.
Monthly: More than 50% of residents registered on Ally are not monitored for 2 or more weeks.
It is essential that managers take action when this happens and encourage staff to use Ally daily for all registered residents.