Resources

In response to quality challenges highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Institute for Quality Improvement (IHI) has looked at how to increase the adoption of effective quality improvement (QI) practices in nursing homes in the United States. Despite the differences in regulatory requirements between countries, the findings are relevant for all involved with aged care: providers, managers, staff, policymakers and advisers.

Older adults report Quality of Life (QoL) as a central goal for aged care, with 93% of Australians agreeing that it should be mandatory for providers to publicly report on QoL measures. Quality of life is also considered by older Australians as a valuable indicator for comparing aged care services. But it’s still not routinely measured and reported in clinical governance datasets.

The Code of Conduct for Aged Care describes the behaviour expected of aged care providers, their governing persons (e.g. board members and Chief Executive Officers) and aged care workers. The Code gives the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission (the Commission) the power to deal with behaviour that is not consistent with the Code.

Governing bodies play a critical role in aged care – they set the direction for, and culture of, the organisation, directly influencing the safety and quality of care provided to consumers.

All human service sectors experience turning points. The 1990s was a decade of revelation about poor healthcare quality, identified and reported in major studies of adverse events and public inquiries across the world. The initial shock waves evolved into a care safety revolution, supported by the introduction of clinical governance. A quarter of a century later, the outcomes of the Aged Care Quality and Safety Royal Commission is having a similar impact in aged care, with a stream of legislation and innovations challenging aged care providers to re-set their approach to creating and maintaining quality care.

In this webinar, Cathy Balding will talk us through four clinical governance rabbit holes that have been observed in healthcare and how avoiding them can accelerate aged care clinical governance effectiveness.

The concept of clinical governance includes how we conduct ourselves as individuals – that is, our ‘personal conduct’ in ‘controlling, regulating, directing or overseeing’ the ‘assessment and management of a person’s health to support optimal outcomes’, where ‘outcomes’ includes the ‘experience of care’.

Regulation can support clinical governance.  This is particularly palpable in aged care reform, where new legislation and revised standards shine a spotlight on clinical governance in way that has not been done in the Australian aged care system before.

Many of the provisions introduced by the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response) Act 2022 will enhance clinical governance in aged care – this is how.

It has been 14 years since all governments in Australia signed the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, yet Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities are still facing barriers to achieving equitable outcomes in health and wellbeing. Despite an abundance of good intentions, healthcare settings are still places where deficits in cultural safety often drive poorer outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This discussion explores what’s required in practice to change that reality.

As the wave of reforms continues within aged care, we stop to take a closer look at ‘Quality’ within aged care. What does it take to achieve quality aged care, and what really is the quality manager’s role in quality care?

In part two of this two-part webinar, Dr Duncan McKellar talks about where to start when developing a cultural framework in the context of compassionate, relationship-centred care. Dr Duncan McKellar will talk through the sequence of events needed, citing the three-phase project plan adopted for Northgate, and the practicality of cultivating psychological safety.