Introducing Access Assure

1​5 February 2023

We are delighted to formally announce that the Alcuris Technology Enabled Care solution has been rebranded Access Assure, in line with its integration into the wider Access Group’s Health, Support and Care division in 2021.

Across Access Health, Support and Care, we are on a mission to support our customers deliver better personal outcomes across the care continuum by providing them with the freedom to do more.

While the brand name may have changed, our enthusiasm and vision to improve care and deliver tangible benefits to thousands of people across stakeholder groups has not.

This post will explain the central role that Access Assure has within the Access Health, Support, & Care portfolio and how it is helping social care, housing, health, local government and the care provider community deliver more joined-up, person-centred care.

What is Access Assure?

Access Assure, formerly known as Alcuris, founded by Alex Nash, goes further than just a digital social alarm ecosystem. It uniquely combines traditional reactive alarm functionality with proactive digital monitoring of the activities of daily living. This in turn,enables commissioners and providers across the care continuum to help people meet their independent living goals by offering preventative, and sustainable care delivery in the home.

This technology addresses a key gap within the current social care system to make a real difference to the lives of people who draw on care support, their families, communities, and the wider care system.

In November 2021 it was announced that Alcuris was to become a new acquisition to The Access Group family, and today we are announcing the new name.

The new branding will position the Assure services as a fundamental part of a wider Access offering across the care continuum that stretches from the home to hospital to supported and residential care. Other solutions in the portfolio include services for Social Care Case Management, Care Commissioning, Scheduling and Rostering, Social Prescribing, Virtual Wards and Health Records.

What is Access Assure’s mission?

In order to support person centred, preventative and sustainable care delivery in the home, Access Assure’s mission is:

• To provide independence through supporting people at home for as long as possible
• To provide positive reassurance to family, friends and carers
• To join up data to provide insight on wellbeing to enable a preventative approach to care and improve outcomes to care planning, review and delivery.

Too often providers and carers have had to react to events, acting only when there is an incident or call for help. The problem with this reactive approach is that both the individual and their carer are often closer to the point of crisis. At this late stage, interventions are more limited, more costly and they offer less choice and control for the individual.

We want to change this experience and improve outcomes through a proactive and preventative model where solutions identify when people are at risk of reaching a crisis before they get there. Enabling better decisions on pre-emptive interventions which are based on insight to build confidence so people can prolong their independence, increase their wellbeing, and reduce their dependency and the burden on carers.

Access Assure’s insight ecosystem is data source agnostic and is interoperable not only with third party hardware, but also other software systems. Increasingly, it willintegrate with other systems, such as Access Mosaic Social Care Case Managementsoftware. This ensures both easier service prescribing and provision ofinsight to improve care planning outcomes.

How does Access Assure work?

Our proactive Technology Enabled Care learns the routines and tempo of each individual to help them live independently by using deep insights from a combination of smart sensor technology and social alarm devices.

Our digital solution has been praised and recognised in the healthcare sector for its innovative brilliance including winning the Care Innovator Award at the Care Awards 2022.

We ensure our solution is effective and simple to use where all sensors, and digital telecare devices , can be set up using the Access Assure App. Here caregivers and family members can create rules so they can receive positive reassurance when all is going well and preventative alerts when there are changes.

Once all the devices are installed, activity patterns are learnt to establish the unique routine of an individual’s day-to-day life in a matter of 14 days.

The unobtrusive monitoring enables appropriate support to be put in place earlier, helping to build confidence and skills so individuals, their families, and carers can maintain health and independence themselves. This taps into family and community networks, reduces dependency, maximises independence, reduces the burden on carers and provides better outcomes to all stakeholders.

What is the link between joined-up care and Access Assure?

Access Assure already starts to join up the care circle for example, by connecting families and friends through the app, but we want to go further. Traditional telecare services, while being reactive and crisis driven, have also suffered from two additional weaknesses. Firstly, the service is still frequently seen by Social Care as an add on to the existing care plan. Secondly, there is no feedback to the prescriber on the outcomes.

Access Assure intends to address both these challenges by providing a two way integration with Social Care Case Management systems, such as Access Mosaic. This means that telecare prescriptions can be created from within the care planning process avoiding the need for additional referral paperwork and positioning technology enabled care as a core offer. Secondly, information from the telecare service can be fed back directly into the client care record. This means that the information can be used either as part of a client review or as opportunity to refine the care plan earlier. In both examples the provision of insight will support evidence based decision making and drive care plan quality improvements.

Access Assure’s disruptive digital telecare solution accelerates change to care provision on a number of fronts;

• Shifting the care model to preventive, personalised and participatory.
• Supporting a strengths based approach that recognises informal carers as equal partners and the strengths of community as part of the care circle.
• Integrating into widely used existing health and social care systems

If you would like to learn more then please visit The Access Assure stand at the TSA ITEC Conference at the ICC, Birmingham on 27th and 28th March 2023. We look forward to meeting you.

For more information prior to the TSA ITEC Conference, learn more about our Technology Enabled Care and see first-hand how our sensors and digital telecare solutions work by contacting us today.