Abbey Healthcare drives improved wellbeing for residents through pilot of digital pain assessment technology

1​2 March 2024

A pilot of a digital pain assessment tool in a Scottish care home has seen the number of pain assessments carried out on its residents increase by over 100%.

PainChek®is being trialled at Abbeydale Court in Hamilton - part of care home group Abbey Healthcare - following an informal recommendation by the Care Inspectorate, with the aim of increasing the number, visibility, quality, and consistency of pain assessments, and thus improving the delivery of care.

PainChek®uses AI and the camera of a smart device to assess a resident’s face, whilst the carer observes the resident to assess their voice, movement, behaviour, activity, and body. This empowers carers to detect pain in residents even when it is not obvious, quantify its severity, and monitor the impact of treatment to optimise care planning.

To date, 424 pain assessments have been completed at Abbeydale Court, with 11 carers regularly conducting the assessments. 95% of follow-up assessments were conducted within 24 hours of the initial assessment, representing a marked improvement in the monitoring of pain. In addition, Abbeydale Court has been able to identify its overall ‘pain burden’ (18%), providing an accurate measure of pain and relevant documentation to base clinical decisions around.

The pilot follows hot on the heels of the Care Inspectorate’s endorsement of PainChek®as part of its Quality Improvement Plan for 2023/4. The initial pilot phase saw PainChek®trialled in a small number of Scottish care homes and linked to a 42% reduction in falls among residents in six months. A second-phase funded PainChek pilot has now commenced across 15 care homes in Scotland.

Grace Sloan, Home Manager at Abbeydale Court, says: “We are thrilled with the initial outcomes of our PainChek pilot and the benefits the technology is bringing to our residents and care team so far. One of our residents has a history of falls, which increased when they stopped smoking. Following a PainChek®assessment, pain was identified, and a GP was engaged. The GP changed the resident’s pain relief from PRN to QDS, resulting in a significant reduction in falls and an improvement in his overall wellbeing. PainChek®has also proved to be a useful tool to rule out pain. A resident was showing distressed behaviours and pain was initially suspected as the cause. Using PainChek®, we were able to rule pain out and investigate other potential causes of distress whilst continuing to monitor pain. We have been able to focus on supporting the resident through positive, personalised interventions including noise therapy and regular observations, addressing the underlying physical contributory factors causing their distress.”

Tandeep Gill of PainChek UK adds: “PainChek is delivering several significant outcomes for Abbeydale through this trial, not least an upskilled, empowered workforce that is confident in delivering best practice pain management. Abbeydale recognised the importance of consistently assessing pain to deliver best practice pain management for all residents, particularly those living with dementia, and who may be unable to reliably self-report that they’re experiencing pain.

“PainChek provided the initial training, point of care application, data analytics portal, and integration with the care provider’s established CMS, CareVision. We supported Abbeydale’s leadership team in building the foundations for PainChek®’s use and then embedding the solution into current workflows. We are pleased to be delivering consistent evidence of excellent wellbeing outcomes for residents at Abbeydale and hope to expand our collaboration across the organisation.”

PainChek now has contracts with over 1,400 aged care facilities across three continents, with more than four million digital pain assessments conducted to date, and is trusted by thousands of nurses, carers, and clinicians.

For more information, visit: https://painchek.com