Startup Idea: Automated Regulatory Compliance Software for Elderly Care Homes

Startup idea to develop software that eases the regulatory burden, paperwork and compliance management for care homes for elderly people. The application would need to prompt document updates, provide fillable PDF forms, manage task schedule and trainings, document management, facilitate facility checks, simulate state inspections and ensure that all governmental regulations are adhered to in an efficient and timely manner.

We operate a small facility that provides housing for elderly people, who need 24-hour care. Our home is regulated by the state, and over the years the regulatory burden and related paperwork has become much more complicated. The house gets inspected once or twice a year, and it would be nice to have some kind of software that prompts us which documents need to be updated and when, and provides PDF forms which can be filled out and printed. These documents range from training certifications, license renewals, care plans, medication records, documentation of recreational activities...to documents related to facility management and maintenance. For example, water heater settings must be calibrated, smoke alarms tested, minor repairs made related to safety issues in the bathrooms. An ideal system would provide both the documents as well as scheduling/prompts for initiating the task being documented, in a way that would increase operational efficiency as well as provide a platform to simulate an inspection/review so that any deficits would be recognized and corrected before an actual inspection by the State Licensor took place. These inspections are very tedious and time consuming and failure to manange certain requirements/documentation can result in citations against us and ensuing fines, sanctions, etc. No- I had not really thought much about automating these processes until this HIT raised the issue, because our operations involve a lot of physical documents stored in files/ binders, as mandated by this government agency which does not a lot of incentive to innovate. So it is daunting to figure out how to automate our system better when we have to provide so many paper documents related to our operations during these inspections.

Submitter: Naomi Shipley (view contact info)