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Lookup NU author(s): Dr Siân Russell, Dr Rachel StockerORCiD, Professor Barbara HanrattyORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
Recent years have seen a rise in digital interventions to improve coordination between care homes and NHS services, supporting remote sharing of data on the health of care home residents. Such interventions were key components in the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper presents findings from the qualitative component of an evaluation of an implementation of the HealthCall Digital Care Homes application, across sites in northern England. The purpose of this qualitative component was to explore issues round feasibility, appropriacy, and acceptability. The implementation commenced prior to the pandemic and continued throughout. Semi-structured, qualitative interviews were held with stakeholders. Interviews were conducted remotely (October 2020 -June 2021). Data were analysed via a reflexive thematic analysis then mapped against Normalization Process Theory (NPT) constructs (coherence, collective action, cognitive participation, and reflexive monitoring) providing a framework to assess implementation success. Thirty-five participants were recruited: 16 care home staff, six NHS community nurses, five relatives of care home residents, four HealthCall team members, three care home residents, and one local authority commissioner. Despite facing challenges such as apprehension towards digital technology among care home staff, the application was viewed positively across stakeholder groups. The HealthCall team maintained formal and informal feedback loop with stakeholders. This resulted in revisions to the intervention and implementation. Appropriate training and problem solving from the HealthCall team and buy-in from care home and NHS staff were key to achieving success across NPT constructs. While this implementation appears broadly successful, establishing rapport and maintaining on-going support requires significant time, financial backing, and the right individuals in place across stakeholder groups to drive implementation and intervention evolution. The digital literacy of care home staff requires encouragement to enhance their readiness for digital interventions. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed this agenda forward. Problems with stability across the workforce within care homes need to be addressed to avoid skill loss and support embeddedness of digital interventions.
Author(s): Russell S, Stocker R, Cockshott Z, Mason S, Knight J, Hanratty B, Preston N
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: BMC Geriatrics
Year: 2025
Volume: 875
Issue: 25
Online publication date: 10/11/2025
Acceptance date: 27/06/2025
Date deposited: 11/11/2025
ISSN (electronic): 1471-2318
Publisher: BioMed Central Ltd.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-025-06217-9
DOI: 10.1186/s12877-025-06217-9
Data Access Statement: Due to the qualitative nature of the data collected data sharing is not available. Doing so could breach participant confidentiality. Furthermore, participants did not provide explicit consent for their data to be shared beyond the research team involved in this study. A request for data should be sent to the corresponding author, S.R.
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