Smart Adult Care Shows Benefits under Real-life Conditions

Piloting a Henkel Qhesive Solution with Human Needs at Heart

Smart Adult Care - a Henkel Qhesive Solution

In digital product development, human centricity is key to create meaningful solutions. Digital solutions that truly make a difference. And for us, a dedicated pilot phase before commercial roll-out is one of the most important steps to get there. 

That is why we have put Smart Adult Care, our people-first, intelligent solution for elderly care, to the test. Because only authentic feedback from real users lets us gain valuable insights throughout the entire development process to iteratively improve our digital solution. 

At Henkel Qhesive Solutions, the umbrella brand by Henkel Adhesive Technologies for smart digital transformation solutions, we always want to learn more about the value and meaning our solutions can add where they are actually in use.

Smart Adult Care is designed to rethink institutional elderly care and incontinence management as we knew it. Drawing from a rich Henkel ecosystem and in collaboration with our partner Smartz AG, we have transformed a traditional adult incontinence diaper into an efficient, user-friendly digital health solution. For the benefit of all stakeholders: caregivers, residents, the healthcare system, hygiene producers. 

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Test under Real-Life Conditions

We were curious: Will Smart Adult Care deliver on this promise? Will it develop its full potential in everyday use? Under real-life conditions?

We set up a comprehensive pilot in an inpatient elderly care facility to find out more about that and objectively quantify the benefits of Smart Adult Care. To this end, the pilot was conducted from April to July 2022 in a 180-bed facility in northern Italy with a total of 25 residents distributed across two wards.

The Pilot Set-up

Working closely with the facility management, we made sure, that Smart Adult Care Dashboard was easily accessible for the caregivers on both wards, considering both the ward design and all relevant processes. 

The Dashboard was then established as the main tool for caregivers and used for notification when the caregiver needed to take action or to help them plan their activities. Smart Adult Care was thus embedded as seamless as possible into the daily routines of the caregivers.

Results of our Trial 

The pilot conducted clearly demonstrated that Smart Adult Care optimized incontinence management, increased the efficiency of care, and improved the quality of care in the nursing home. This can be attributed to three main findings:

1. Less Diapers

Although diaper consumption was already at a very efficient level at the beginning (3.33 diapers per day), a further reduction of 16.2% was achieved during the pilot period with the help of Smart Adult Care. Even though the morning routine was 

2. Less Leakages

Smart Adult Care was not only able to reduce general diaper use. Diaper leakages and the efforts associated with changing the resident's bedding and clothing could also be reduced significantly. The main factor here: quick response times due to diaper change notifications via our SAC dashboard.

This not only resulted in less laundry (reduction of 50%). Additionally, skin condition of residents with decubitus and rashes also improved. As one of the caregivers puts it: “Extraordinary good for the residents from a skin point of view, for a better sleep and to prevent spending a long time in a wet diaper.”

3. Time Savings and Quality

For us, the pilot highlights a very decisive factor beyond pure facts and figures: The importance of quality. Increased quality of life through the possibility of individualized elderly care. Care addressing the resident’s specific needs instead of time-consuming, often unnecessary standards. Increased quality of care and thus quality of work, because caregivers can now put personal care back into their daily routines. And increased quality of management processes, because the healthcare system is relieved of avoidable costs. 

The Potential of Smart Adult Care

For us, this is just the beginning for our Smart Adult Care solutions. The challenges of an aging society will affect us all. Globally. But with the data collected, we at Henkel Qhesive Solutions strongly believe that Smart Adult Care can make elderly care not only smarter, but truly better.

Or as one of the participating caregivers puts it: "It is definitely an improvement for my work. I can use the time saved for other nursing activities." Another one highlighted: "At first it was difficult to get used to it because it messed up the work schedule. Once we understood how it worked, it became easier because it reduced our work.

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Do you want to join us on our journey towards a future not only smarter but better? Or do you want to discuss your ideas on how to improve people's lives? We are happy to talk. Just get in touch.

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