Ongoing monitoring of residents’ health in your care home will be an essential part of the daily, weekly & monthly patient care. Ensuring you have good quality, reliable health monitoring equipment can make all the difference when checking for potential deterioration and health changes in your residents.
Medical devices play a key role in healthcare and are vital for diagnosis, monitoring and rehabilitation, as well as for the well rounded care of your patients. We have been supplying monitoring equipment to NHS and private hospitals, medical professionals and care homes for almost 50 years.
Above and beyond your standard first aid kits and supply of sterile dressings and bandages that will be securely kept in the residential home there are a number of health monitoring essentials that you’ll need to keep.
Monitoring for Patients
For many elderly patients there will be a requirement for daily or regular blood pressure monitoring to take place outside of the clinical setting. Monitoring will need to take place within the care home in this case as part of the residential care.
- A wrist blood pressure monitor is a good option for the care home setting as it offers fully automated readings with a simple, single button operation.
- Oximeter - post-pandemic, a finger oximeter has become a standard piece of first response care and care home monitoring equipment.
- Patients who may be used to monitoring their own blood glucose levels will undoubtedly require support in the care home environment. A simple Nexus Blood Glucose monitoring system or a Multicarein (cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose) monitor will provide adequate monitoring for most patients in that setting. Be sure to stock plentiful supplies of glucose strips.
- Monitoring weight loss and lack of appetite in elderly and infirm patients will be made easier with Mechanical Class IIII Medical floor scales. Care home settings lend themselves to mechanical weighing scales but a digital weighing scale with a lower profile can be preferable if avoiding any step-up is required for the patient in care.
Maintaining Monitors
In accordance with care regulations, the care home staff & managers will need to ensure that all blood pressure monitors, blood glucose machines, oximeters and monitoring equipment is cleaned, maintained (batteries checked) and calibrated in line with the manufacturer’s instructions.
Appropriate training will also be required to use and manage all monitoring equipment.
May 2023