2 April 2024

On Thursday 21st March, our Operations Officer, Jamie Bloomfield, attended the UK Care Week, at the NEC Birmingham, on behalf of our members, to network with essential contacts and learn from fantastic speakers in the sector.



1)       Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Care


The day began with Jamie witnessing Katie Thorn (Project Lead from the Digital Care Hub) seminar on ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Care’.


Advantages of AI:


The points discussed from Katie was how is AI used in care, including using chatbots that can:



It was clear that AI can be beneficial to a care setting, if used efficiently and in partnership with staff common-sense and knowledge of the work their doing.


This is due to the AI collecting information and data from the web to come up with resources to support the provider with whatever query they may have.


Disadvantages:


This information must always be checked for errors, as currently, the information collected may not always be 100% correct.


AI can also have a habit of ‘bias’ towards a certain right or wrong answer, depending on the way a question is worded to it. Providers can prevent this from happening through asking the AI to ‘not hallucinate’, when asking a question.


A further complication can be the possibility of staff disempowerment and the thoughts of some staff, that technology is ‘taking their jobs’.


Katie argued that these thoughts can be avoided by training staff on why the use of AI is helpful in enhancing their standard of care through limiting time-consuming admin tasks, to enable the human staff to concentrate more on the actual physical caring side of the role.


Katie also recommends that providers choose a paid for AI, as some of the free technology has a risk of GDPR issues, as you aren’t assured of their protection against hackers.


2)       Panel Discussion- Technology for Workforce Wellbeing- help or hindrance?


Jamie then listened to a panel discussion with:


The focus of this panel discussion was how wellbeing fits into the new CQC framework and how technology can support providers implementing a strategy into their workforce.


The panel shared that CQC will be speaking with staff virtually to learn more about how their employer is looking after their wellbeing and what the leadership and management is like in the organisation.


Advantages:


An evaluation took place from the panel that demonstrated how technology can reduce staff burnout through:



Disadvantages:



Keynote Speaker- Helen Whatley, Minister for Social Care- Current and Future Plans


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