Resources

This Perspectives Brief from the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association’s Deeble Institute examines approaches to observations of the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety. The authors of this Perspectives Brief note that the Royal Commission ‘identified the need to improve the delivery of health care to meet the needs of older persons and their carers’ and that the ‘greater involvement of older persons and their carers in research to develop solutions was recommended.’

The East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT) has dived deeply into partnering with consumers for service improvement. ELFT provides mental health and community services to a diverse population in over 100 community and inpatient sites.  

This aged care reform roadmap provides an indicative timeline for key reform elements.

Providers must have a written plan for continuous improvement that explains how the provider will meet its obligations in relation to the service and the standards.

Download the Four Clinical Governance Rabbit Holes to Avoid paper for free.

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.

Technological advances have opened new possibilities for improving patient safety. Using technology to digitize healthcare processes has the potential to increase standardisation and efficiency of clinical workflows, and to reduce errors and cost across all healthcare settings. However, if technological approaches are designed or implemented poorly, the burden on care providers can increase.

With the publication of STAR ratings, Australian aged care enters a new era of quality measurement and public reporting. What can we learn from other countries using similar systems about the potential for published ratings to effect improvement?

Standard operating procedures (SOP) provide an ability to define the steps and processes required to undertake a given activity. This can be critical in setting team expectations and to identify the requirements - such as training or coaching – needed to complete the SOP.

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.